


To Tame a Raven

by foxghost



Series: Slaves of Tevinter [1]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Anal Sex, Animal Play, BDSM, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Espionage, Figging, Frottage, Humiliation, Kinbaku (Japanese Rope Bondage), M/M, Non Consensual, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Plotty, Porn With Plot, Post-Game(s), Prostate Milking, Public Sex, Slavery, Sounding, Tevinter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-04 01:46:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 30
Words: 140,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxghost/pseuds/foxghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For this very open-ended <a href="http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/8832.html?thread=33939840">prompt</a><br/>Post-DA2, Anders and Hawke splits up from the rest of the gang good old canon ending style, and then Anders gets captured by slavers and is bought by Saul, one of the most powerful slave brokers in the Imperium. Anders is undisciplined, defiant, and uncooperative. What will it take to turn him into an obedient love slave?</p><p>Perhaps he will learn a new perspective and understand what Fenris has been telling him all these years.</p><p>Everything in Tevinter has two sides; nothing is what it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Do I need another wip? Apparently I do!
> 
> I have a bunch of puns about how I got roped into this and there was some other ones about tying, but I'll refrain. Anders as slave have been done before, in beautiful ways, and I for one would not say no to more. The nitty gritty of _how_ , in detail, is what I'm after.
> 
> Rating will go up to explicit at chapter 5. (Yup.)

Everything Fenris had said about the Tevinter Imperium was true.

Anders' eyes scanned the scene below him. The party had been in full swing for hours, with people drifting in and out of the far entrance somewhere to his right. Or was it his left? He was confused as to which way his head pointed. Each side of this forum boasted the same elaborate archways, of a scale for giants.

Back in the tower, Anders used to wonder if the Tevinters built their enormous buildings to better accommodate pride abominations.

The servant who had bound him, who chattered as each turn of the rope went on, told him that he should be so happy. Other slaves were placed in much more uncomfortable ways, hands grabbing their ankles behind them and suspended, or contorted into dancing positions and held there with rope, hair brushed through with water so that the fibrous length would hold.

The ropes specialist was not a slave. He was born a free Tevinter tradesman, and so he knew nothing of what made a slave happy.

His arms bound to the bar of a cross and his body along its length, decorated in black feathers attached to needles embedded in his skin, Anders surmised that he was supposed to represent the flight of birds or something similar. Freedom for mages, probably, since he was in Tevinter after all. His old self might have appreciated the irony.

He was nude, but clothed in ropes and enchantments; bound, and a symbol of freedom; a human, and yet no more important than a piece of decorative furniture. How the magisters loved the paradoxical nature of their very existence.

A nation of free mages who kept slaves.

Distantly, he heard his master's laugh ringing out through the din. Anders' pupils moved behind slitted lids, focusing on a hand in the crowd holding a silver goblet, dark green chalcedony ring with its blood red flecks resting firmly on his middle finger, almost black in the glow of the lanterns.

He followed the movement, the exaggerated way his master spoke with his hands, distracting his viewer with sweeping gestures away from his eyes which never smiled.

A shadow obscured his view, too close, impossible unless the figure floated on air.

Then he was right in front of Anders, Dark eyes set in an angelic face, ebony black hair pulled back with a tie, bare shoulders of an alabaster white covered in strands of pearls. Florian removed the gag from Anders' mouth, hanging the lantern that was attached to the bit on his own forearm.

He wiped at Anders' chin with a cloth, and when it was placed over his lips he could smell the syrupy scent of winter wine, but he did not open his mouth until the youth pushed at his lips with the napkin urging him to take it in.

It was soaked through with the same wine they served in the banquet, enough to moisten his tongue and banish the dry cotton feeling that permeated his mouth.

"Do not be alarmed. Don't look up," he said, removing the cloth. Anders' tongue darted out after it, seeking the little bit of moisture, and Florian shook his head minutely, a barely perceptible motion, certainly not viewable from the floor. "Your master requested that your gag be removed. He finds the sight of it distasteful. It would be best if you can keep quiet, so as not to force him to use it again. Do you understand?"

Anders tried to nod, but his hair was tucked half under the bar behind his head. He opened his mouth slightly, instead, as Florian touched up his lower lip with golden gloss. It tickled, though the sable hair against his skin felt nice and he panted softly.

As Florian used a tiny brush to touch up Anders' hair, little wispy strands that escaped from the tie, he leaned closer to one ear and whispered, clenching his teeth to keep his words from being read at a distance. "Your friends are in the city. It won't be long now."

He had forgotten what it was like to have friends, outside of Mira and Florian. Anders whispered back, "Mira?"

"You can't take her," Florian moved to the other side, painting his earlobes in gold after brushing his hair back. "We don't have the resources to free both of you."

"Then I'll stay," there was once a time when he would have left a friend behind, as he had when he was still in Ferelden - a world away, two worlds away counting Kirkwall - and he was selfish, as the young could be often selfish. Mira was more helpless than himself; scarred and mute. If he escaped, they would blame her.

Her blood would become a part of the ritual used to hunt him down in the end.

"It's not your choice," Florian hissed. "She wants to stay."

Words from another lifetime ago drifted to the forefront of his mind, from an old rival whose words he never truly believed, spoken to a hysterical slave.

_You just didn't know any better._

The idea of rebellion in him had been beaten down over so long that he could barely remember why he wanted to leave, or how a life of being fugitives was preferable to this. He was in no danger of being sacrificed; his master loved him, told him so everyday. On the rare occasion, he was even allowed to use his creation magic. What slave could ask for more?

Florian stared at his eyes that peeked out beneath a fringe of gilded lashes, and it seemed to distress him that Anders never once raised them to look at him.

"I told them that it may be too late for you, but they didn't want to listen," he sighed, dabbing Anders' brow with the napkin. Louder, he said, "please remember to be quiet."

Then he left, a soft scratching sound from below alerting Anders of a stool scraping across the floor.

Anders kept his mouth slightly open, as was proper for a slave. He did not speak, instead allowing the hubbub of the crowd below him to wash over his senses, taking comfort in its company, picking out the voice of his master in the crowd hoping to hear mention of his own name.

No other voices matter, not the laughter of the young mageling by his master's elbow, or the couple kissing below him as though the world did not exist save them. The sound of sex drifted throughout the room from its periphery, where the line of body slaves waited in their swings.

There were men and women bound with their calves to the sides of circular swings and crude ladders, others like himself who were chosen for their beauty, most of them elves. Each of them was spread wide in a spiderweb of rope, so that anyone could walk up and take them if they pleased. The air was scented with musk and fresh seed, like fresh greenery in the spring of Ferelden.

There was never spring here, just an unending summer ranging between hot and scorching.

Examining the thought with horrid fascination as from a great distance, Anders realized that he wished he was one of those slaves. They were being useful slaves, with masters that took pleasure in their suffering or rapture, while he was deemed too defiant this evening to serve as anything more than a decoration.

"That one is mine, the black-winged raven."

Anders nearly snapped his head sideways at the mention of himself, but his bondage was so tight that he had no leeway at all, and he was thankful for the lack of choice; for if he had the choice to turn his head and he did, then he would have disobeyed again.

"The black feathers are pretty," the girl next to him said. She looked no older than sixteen, if that. She must have been ambitious, to be invited to a party such as this. "A bit ominous though, no? And white feathers would have matched his hair better."

"Are you disagreeing with my choice for his attire?" His master said.

The girl backpedaled immediately, "I meant no disrespect, magister."

At this his master laughed. Anders almost smiled, he so loved that laugh, the fearless abandon of it, pure exhilaration. His master did not smile very well, but he had a beautiful laugh.

"Oh, it is no disrespect to me, enchanter. You would not be the first to criticize; an old friend once said his black feathers reminded her of a 'crow in the middle of anting,'" He took a sip of the sweet wine, lifting it to toast his slave, bright brown eyes sparkling with mirth.

"But I didn't do this for me. He always did love those feathers."


	2. Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We go back in time.

Justice, and by extension Anders, was overcome with remorse. It was the only emotion he allowed himself, a penitence for the war he had begun but was excluded from by his friends. Justice had gone from the disbelief he expressed at the very beginning, as they walked by mages turning to demons to fight for their lives, to the silent self-admonishment aimed at them both, sitting dormant at the back of Anders' mind too ashamed to show himself even to share their thoughts.

Anders hadn't felt so alone in a very long time. He imagined he heard the distant sound of battle, of the roaring of fire and the crackle of lightning, but he could no longer trust his own senses. The past few months had passed in a haze, finding him in odd places after blackouts, waking up with a bone-weary feeling of having already been awake for hours but not knowing where the time had gone.

He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, the leather soles on his boots worn so thin he could feel each rock and stone. It was growing dark; he would have to find shelter soon. He slowed, bending down every so often to pick up suitable firewood, keeping only those that did not feel moist to the touch.

Vaguely, he knew that he was moving towards Cumberland, but he wasn't sure exactly why. There was a circle there. If the right of annulment was called for across Thedas for his actions, he could warn each circle so they could best prepare.

He was watching the stars peeking through his canopy of leaves when he heard the approach of armoured boots.

Templars? He did not bother getting up. If Vengeancee decided to let him die, then it was time. He expected death already, hours - days? he was not hungry enough for it to be days - ago asking his friend to do the merciful thing, which he did not.

"You're not very good at this escaping from justice thing, are you?" He heard Hawke's voice, with his old words. Anders might have told the story to Varric himself.

He dared not speak. There was a slight possibility that this was real, and Hawke was really here, having tracked him across the forest over the thin dirt roads. It was much more likely that he was hallucinating, the guilt of leaving his friends behind, both his contacts in the Circle and the ragtag group of misfits fighting his war in Kirkwall. Years of talking to himself had finally turned into madness at last.

"Those tracks you left are a mile wide, Blondie." Varric's steps were silent even on unpredictable ground. "Have I taught you nothing? Don't answer that."

Only then did he move, turning his head towards that familiar voice. The dwarf stared back at him, one eyebrow lifted in concern, and Anders was glad to see that his crossbow was not aiming at him though his sanity was clearly in question.

"You should have killed him, Hawke." Fenris said, and Anders was alarmed to hear a hint of pain, _wounded._ "Look at him. He looks half-dead already."

"I tried to stitch him but I'm no good at healing so I just covered it up with a poutice and bound it but I'm afraid it didn't do anything," Merrill blurted all in one breath.

"I, for one, am glad that he's still alive. Take a look at our stubborn elf, will you?" Isabela. Not in pain, but she sounded annoyed, at the end of her rope.

Fenris had an arm flung over her shoulder; one side of him was covered in blood from a rip in his armour just under his arm all the way down to his ankles.

Anders helped Isabela lower him to the bedroll, no time to worry about blood stains; there were bloodstain a plenty on it already, and more wouldn't hurt. He opened his mouth to ask for permission, and Fenris snarled, "just get it over with."

They were all wounded in some way, but Fenris had bruised ribs, one fractured and scratching at his lung. If he had waited any longer or been jolted too hard in their walk it might have killed him.

It felt good to be useful again and not just a walking disaster. Anders moved around the campfire - it was no wonder that they found him so easily, his boots not watching where he stepped, picking up firewood as he went, and this bright beacon in the dark - and healed each of them in turn, his spirits lifting as his old friends sighed in contentment over closed gashes and mended bones.

"Right. Well, that was stupid of me, really." Hawke sat next to him, his demeanor friendly, as though the past day was a dream and he did not spare his friend's life and asked him to run while he bought time. "Going off to fight the Meredith abomination without a healer. Not going to do that again."

They all sat around the fire then, Varric recounting the details of their battle at the gallows and Anders listening intently, nodding on occasion to assure the dwarf that he was still awake.

"Aveline stayed behind to keep order, but I think she's fighting a losing battle. Kirkwall is lost," Hawke said, once the tale was done. "I would have taken Meredith's head with us and put it on a pike for you if she didn't turn into evil lyrium, by the way."

Anders smiled; the muscles in his cheeks nearly jumped over the now unfamiliar stretch, "thank you anyway. For my life."

"I'd thank you for his," Hawke pointed at Fenris with a thumb, who cursed under his breath in Arcanum. "Since he's too much of a tit to do it himself. Good thing Carver stayed at the gallows, or I'd have to put up with both of them. A pair of tits. Hah!"

Isabela snickered; Anders laughed, it was dry and brittle, his laugh, but Hawke took it as encouragement, snaking an arm around Anders' shoulder.

"Your jokes are as bad as ever, Hawke." Anders said.

"I'm trying," Hawke smiled, mouth quirking up in a half-grin, but even that was a fake, pitiful thing. His arm stayed, pulling Anders towards him to rest his head on a fur-covered pauldron.

Anders' blind love for Hawke had turned into an uneasy friendship over the years. They had one night, and it wasn't a lack of affection on either side that kept them apart. Hawke insisted that Anders could not devote himself to a relationship and his all-consuming cause at the same time, and he was right. The camaraderie they shared now was leaps and bounds preferable to a failed love affair.

"So, were you heading to Cumberland?" Varric said. "There's a circle there. Where there's a circle, there are more templars. Not a smart choice for a fugitive in hiding."

"I don't know," he had relied on Justice to make his decisions for him for so long. Now that the spirit was silent Anders was at a loss for what to say or do. He ran out of steam to rail against injustice on his own a long time ago.

Maybe he never did, and it was all Justice.

"Up to Nevarra, maybe, or take a ship out of Cumberland back to Ferelden," Anders said.

"Let's all go to Cumberland together," Hawke decided, lightly punching his fist into his palm. "There's only one lyrium idol, so at least I know there won't be demonic slave statues there or mad Meredith abominations. We can decide what to do from there."

News travelled quickly, but inaccurately. By the time they arrived in Cumberland, the story of the rebellion at the Kirkwall Circle had taken many forms, ranging from 'the Maker destroyed the chantry' which Anders found by turns both flattering and horrifying, to 'the Champion burned down the city' which was just an extension of the pirate invasion tale Varric spread around years ago.

"It looks like you're in no immediate danger, anyway. Choir boy went east, last I checked, and it'll take him a while to gather his army to hunt the two of you down," Varric brought their drinks up to a suite he rented in the name of the Dwarven merchant guild.

"Maybe he never will," Hawke said, unimpressed. "Sebastian's always been a man to make vows he can't keep. Man can't pull his own pants up without me."

Near everyone groaned, Fenris muttering _I did not need that mental image_ , but he seemed to have come to a decision.

"All the same, I think it would be best for me to return to Kirkwall." Fenris said, sipping at the watered-down ale that was the same across all taverns, grimacing. "If he does return with an 'army' I can stall him. Aveline can use all the help she can get, as well."

"Splitting up is a good idea," Isabela said, holding Merrill close. "We'll commandeer a ship and hopefully confuse the trail. That means you can't go to Ferelden, though."

"Why don't you go home to the Anderfels?" Merrill said. "If I had a chance to go anywhere I want to, I'd love to go back to my old clan."

"I'm from Ferelden, Merril. My family's from the Anderfels," Anders said, not touching the ale pushed in front of him at all by force of habit, though Justice would probably let him get drunk now. "I've never been anywhere outside of Ferelden and Kirkwall."

But he never had a home beyond the small hamlet he grew up in, and even those memories were tainted with templars kicking in the door. There was no place he felt truly safe, not since he set a fire in his father's barn. At least he hadn't been alone since his last escape that made him a warden.

Justice woke a little as Anders roused his memories of Vigil's Keep, but there was no answering voice as he asked whether the spirit wanted to return to the wardens. The wardens had no problem with Justice haunting a corpse before, and judging by Nathaniel's reaction as their group rescued him from the deep roads, Anders' skills were sorely missed.

It was an option, though he did not want to bring the wrath of Sebastian Vael to Amaranthine, if the wayward prince managed to regain his throne.

He turned a smile on Hawke, "but maybe the Anderfels is a good idea. I should ... go on alone."

Varric looked as though he would object, but Hawke beat him to it, "not while I'm alive you don't. You got us into this mess, you're stuck with me."

"Garrett, they're after me, not you. There are lots of 'Anders' in Nevarra, and if I do make it to the Anderfels, I'd fit right in. You won't."

"Why is it always 'Garrett' when you want something?" Hawke crossed his arms, looking haughty, a child who never grew out of the pout stage. "Garrett, go dig through shit in the sewers, please. Garrett, please stab me in the back even if it'd guilt-trip you for life."

Anders slammed his full drink on the table suddenly, heedless of the frothy liquid that splashed against the wood, and walked out with nary a glance behind him.

"Very sensitive of you, Hawke. About as good as the joke you made to Saemus' dad when his son died." Varric said, regarding him coldly from across their table.

"Fuck. Why don't any of you stop me before I say something stupid?" Hawke set his drink down, rushing out after the healer.

"Because we'll have to sew your mouth shut permanently!" Isabela cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted after him.

Anders was unstable before, but now he seemed more so than ever. Hawke was afraid of letting the healer out of his sight.

He found Anders sitting in a darkened corner of the bar, well away from the door and the little cliques that gathered as people often did in pubs. The feathers on his shoulders were singed and moist though it was a new coat, and in Hawke's opinion, much too distinctive for someone in hiding. Mentally putting 'buy new armour' on his to-do list, he slid into the seat next to Anders.

"I'm sorry, sometimes stuff just comes out of my mouth." He apologized immediately, and encouraged by the chuckle that Anders' let out at his expense, continued. "But I'm serious. You can't just get rid of me after ruining my life, all right? Granted, it wasn't much of a life anyway, Meredith would have arrested me for apostasy eventually, and I was getting sick of living in that big mansion all by myself."

Anders cringed at every foot-in-mouth moment, the way Hawke could by turns stab and sooth without so much as think about it was a bit of a wonder to watch. Placing his hand over the rambling mage's, he said, "I'm the one that should apologize, Hawke."

"Well, we can go on like this forever, say 'sorry' to each other until our faces turn blue," Hawke said, turning his hand over to clasp at Anders'. "Or you can just resign to your fate and come to terms with your new shadow. I go where you go. That's that."

Anders tapped the space between his collarbones and gave Hawke a look. At first, Hawke wasn't sure what that was supposed to represent, then he remembered: the Tevinter chantry amulet.

"We can't tell them," Hawke said. "Fenris will not approve. I'm not sure I do, either."

"Where else can we be safe, Hawke? If we're just regular people running from the chantry, we can always convert to the Qun, but we're not."

"There's always Rivain," Hawke said, but the lapse in logic on his part was so obvious, that even before Anders said anything he'd slapped himself on the forehead. "Have to get through half the Free Marches and Antiva to get to it. And then there's the Qunari who'd want to sew mages' mouths shut. Right."

"If we go north from here, we'll have to go through the Imperium to get to the Anderfels regardless. If we don't like it there we keep moving." Anders shrugged. One place was as good as another at this point, as long as there were no templars. "Why are you smiling like that?"

At the mention of his grin, akin to that of the cat that swallowed a canary, Hawke attempted to tone it down to no avail. "You said 'we,' like ten times."

Anders chuckled softly, though his voice was warm as he scolded, "you're an idiot."

"Your very own personal idiot. You remember that bit I told you when we met, when I said I don't do anything involving children or animals? Scratch that. Watch me pull a rabbit out of my -"

"I don't want to know," but Anders was grinning now, too, shaking his head at the thought of the string of bad jokes that would no doubt fill their days.

Thankfully, Hawke was prepared enough for this trip, Varric having stashed most of their joint investments in Antivan banks so that gold wasn't a problem. At Anders' raised eyebrow over their joint bank accounts, Hawke just shrugged and mumbled _codependency runs deep, what do you want me to say?_

His coat was still new and his heart broke as he parted with it, but he saw the practical side of wearing light leather armour of the kind Hawke used to wear back in Ferelden. Whatever symbol Anders had become, it was a hunted one.

Isabela cooed over his black coat and Hawke's fur-lined champion mantle. They couldn't very well sell it; it would have marked their location as surely as a phylactery could have. She gathered up the pieces of their armour, "let me have those."

"What are you going to do with them?" Anders asked, then immediately regretted it as a lewd smile spread over Isabela's face.

"There's this game kitten and I play called the apostate and the champion -"

He clapped his hands over his ears. Anders knew that she was just making fun of him; in reality she was probably going to sell them in Ferelden to some gormless raiders in order to lead Sebastian on a merry chase. But pointing out her kindness would be an embarrassment to her. Pretending that she was going to role play with them was easier for both parties.

That she might have been telling the truth had crossed his mind.

If she was anything but sincere in their parting, he could not discern otherwise. Isabela was as always light with her words, but they were friends, acquaintances from even before Kirkwall, and when she hugged him and told him to take care of himself, Anders knew that she cared.

Even Fenris seemed a little reluctant to let them go, but Anders was sure that his concern was all for Hawke, the one with too much magic and seemingly not enough brains. He got where he was by reacting to events, swept along by fate and rolling with it, his fortunes rising with the tide.

Never one to plan ahead, their Hawke.

Varric clasped Anders' hand and said, "you two take care of each other. Don't forget to write."

Then even Varric was gone, off to maintain the family fortune, or more likely to spread his tales of the champion and plant a different location of their disappearance in each pub he visited to best confuse the trail.

Anders stared down at the stone of the Imperial Highway; each step would remind him that they were quarried by slaves in Kirkwall and laid down, as was all things Tevinter, by the 'blood and tears of slaves.' A moment's hesitation then; he thought about blood magic performed in the streets, as confirmed by Feynriel's letters.

Perhaps this was not the best choice.

But what was the best choice? Everywhere in Thedas they were now wanted men, together more so than alone. He used to dream of it, back in the tower when he was barely harrowed and young, to stow away on a ship in Highever or Denerim, one of those port cities he studied on his maps, reaching Cumberland and walking up the imperial highway to Tevinter.

He'd join the Tevinter chantry and become part of their circle, and his talent in healing could be put to good use. But the years had hardened him, painted his dreams with realism, and even this, the road he had fantasized of, was not spared.

"All roads lead to Tevinter, don't they?" Hawke shaded his eyes against the light of dawn from the east. He held out a hand, palm up and open, and Anders knew what was on offer. An invitation both to hold it, to continue their relationship and pretend the past three years was just a short lapse in what they were, or a simple gesture to move to his side and walk along with him.

Anders stepped forward to walk beside him, his gaze on the distant clouds, no mountain ranges in their way from here to Tevinter, and if the day was clear enough he could almost see it.

So intent on the horizon was Anders, that he did not see Hawke's expression fall or the frown that came and went, quick as lightning, or the way he balled that outstretched hand into a fist behind him.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," Anders quoted, turning his head and catching a slight smile Hawke gave.

And thus they began their long walk to Tevinter.


	3. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke is a picky eater.

To further throw off the scent, they turned west before the large stone toll bridge that would have taken them across the Minanter river, choosing instead to follow the small roads that wounded west along the water, skirting around Nevarra City though Hawke complained bitterly that he wanted to go shopping.

He was whining for new clothes and food that wasn't dry biscuit, and it continued for days until they finally reached Hunter Fell, finding a ford in the river just before the current forked.

"You are so spoiled," Anders remarked, as Hawke picked at a potato pancake covered in some sort of sour cream as though it was made of demon. "It's onions and potatoes with eggs. My mother used to make this. It's delicious."

"Maybe I will like Tevinter," Hawke sighed, shoveling forkfuls of food into his mouth without looking, hoping that it would metamorphose into something familiar. "I like Orana's cooking."

"A country is not defined by its food," Anders said, enjoying his potato pie with relish as one who had been denied a childhood favourite for too long.

"I beg to differ," Hawke waggled a finger, pulling it back when he noticed that the gesture was all his mother's. He waved his fork instead, "Ferelden food is like its landscape. Hardy, sticks to your ribs, and boring. The uniform gray of ... um, an overcast sky, when its not raining and watery."

He went on complaining, but his tone was fond. Before Hawke moved to hightown and into the sprawling mansion, his mother cooked all his food, and it was undoubtedly Ferelden fare; barley and root vegetables cooked to a paste with a smattering of meat thrown in for flavour, a sort of grey-brown goo that Anders was well familiar with.

With the potato pie in front of him, he could appreciate Hawke's need for a taste of home. Regretfully, in a little inn like this one, with only one room and three things on the menu, he could only lend an ear as Hawke went on his tirade on all things terrible about Ferelden food that he missed dearly.

"I'm sure we can arrange for some old-fashioned dumplings and stew when we get settled in, _dear,_ " Anders said.

He had no idea what to expect outside of the few books he had read and the speeches on those hated magisters from Fenris.

If they kept away from the seat of power in Minrathous, perhaps the slavery and blood magic problem wouldn't be so bad, and the only difference between here and there would be a lack of templars hunting apostates.

Justice would have railed at that thought; _you must act to free those who remained oppressed_. That he was quiet in the face of Anders' decisions was telling. Anders was planning to hide in a country rife with slavery; Justice would never have stood for it.

He probably would have sneaked into the Tevinter assembly to blow it up. Maybe they shouldn't be trusted near large, iconic buildings.

Hawke stared at him from across the table, fork halfway to his mouth, sour cream dripping off the hated morsel.

"Is there something on my face?" Anders asked.

"Are we, um," _moving in together when we get there_ , "ur," _sharing a room tonight this inn doesn't seem to have more than one_ , "um."

"At a loss for words? I should mark this day on the calendar - ow." Anders rubbed at his triceps where Hawke smacked him, "well, out with it."

"I'm going to get us a room," Hawke pushed away from the table, stammering, dropping his fork in his haste.

The little awkward gestures Hawke made were obvious, flirtatious attempts that fell flat at the best of times. Anders had not minded them; it was flattering, but dangerous with his uncertain state of mind.

No harm would come to Hawke if he spread out his bedroll next to the bed; the man would protest, but a roof above their heads was an improvement over sleeping outside waking with the mist on his skin seeping through his clothes, leaving him cold for hours until the sun beat down from the sky at noon.

But when those protests came, Garrett was literally _pouting_ , sticking his lower lip out so far Anders wanted to catch it in a kiss. For it was love after all that brought them together, this facade of friendship growing thinner by the day. He climbed under the covers and kissed Hawke on his forehead, on the edge of his hairline and pretended that he had not felt the quivering beneath his lips.

Still, when they parted Hawke did not try to hold on. This hesitation was something he came to expect from Hawke at least, the way he always seemed as though he was walking on egg shells. There was so much fear behind his little gestures; he would take however much of Anders he was able to get.

"Good night, Hawke." He whispered, and the bed was so comfortable compared to the hard ground they had slept on for over a week that sleep took him immediately.

Hawke was used to his silk covered, feather-down bed, with its many coverlets and an overabundance of pillows, so it took him longer to give in to the fade. He watched Anders instead, so peaceful, his worry lines smoothed away by slumber and the nearing promise of a home and safety.

Vol Dorma was where they needed to be. Not anywhere near the coastal cities rife with Qunari attacks, and far enough away from Minrathous to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Weisshapt was less than a day's journey away, in case the chantry came calling, and if they kept going they could lose themselves in the Anderfels.

Just as long as Anders was in his sight, that was enough. They did not have to be more than friends; even this ambivalence that pained him was better than not knowing where he was, that hollow in his chest that he was half-tempted to ask Fenris to test where his heart had been when he sent his friend away from the foot of the chantry steps.

He tucked his head under Anders' chin near the stubble turning into a beard, scratching his forehead. The sound of Anders' heartbeat, strong and steady beneath his thin shift, lulled him to sleep with tentative promises of the future.

Seven years in Kirkwall as a free mage had dulled his senses for danger. He would think on the details he missed much later, the way their bartender eyed his sword staff suspiciously or the hush that blanketed the room as they made it from the door to their table in a dark corner. Big cities were easy to hide in, small towns, not so much.

He thought they were safe. This village was so small it had no chantry, just an open courtyard for gathering and praying, and not a single templar in sight.

A tight squeeze to his shoulders and a hand to his mouth woke Hawke. He nearly screamed but for the breath by his ear and the scent of elfroot that signaled the presence of Anders. He didn't mind at all if the healer made a move on him. It was highly unlikely.

Templars, bandits, or raiders were more likely than Anders attacking him in his sleep, unfortunately.

"I feel templars," Anders whispered. Well, there went that hope. Anders was the more adept of the two of them at the sensing of ripples in the fade caused by walking lyirum blood vessels that were templars. "Only two though. We can take two."

Once upon a time, back in Lothering, an age ago now, his father told him to never, ever kill templars. A mage that ran away was an apostate, but one that killed a templar, even in self-defense, was a maleficar. Hawke broke those rules long ago, and the first time he did so was for Anders, in a chantry that now lain in ruin because of ingredients he gathered for Anders.

His friends always figured that they were following Hawke. If only they knew the truth.

"What should we do?" His words came out muffled behind the hand over his mouth. Hawke licked it, giggled as Anders pulled away as though it was on fire. He whispered again, "We can always run. Out the window, maybe?"

Anders had become more confrontational over the years, not less, and when they ran into templars they fought and won, sometimes four against twenty, but their group was more than mages, people who were not susceptible to smites and silences.

This was no time to savor their closeness, but Anders had his lips drawn into a line behind Hawke's neck, and when he spoke it was warm against his skin. He was going to have a very awkward time jumping out of windows.

"Get dressed and collect your things. Follow closely, all right?" Anders slipped away from behind him and Hawke breathed a sigh of relief, calming down though the threat of death was mood altering enough.

They dressed quickly and silently. Whatever these templars were doing, they were in no hurry, probably hoping to surprise two apostates while they slept.

"Shit," Anders cursed under his breath. There were only two templars, but they were approaching their room. It would have been easy for the armoured men to follow them out the window, breaking the glass and whatever else in their way as their silverite shell protected their skin. His clothes offered no such protection.

There were innocent people - and some not so innocent ones who turned them in - and Vengeance could very well catch them all in the crossfire if he unleashed the spirit here. The sight of templars turned him into a monster. Hawke had already seen it once. He did not wish for him to see it again.

If Anders could lure them away from here, then he could easily burn up both of them, out of sight.

Hawke was looking at him expectantly, slinging his pack over a shoulder. He had promised to stay close, but even in all his rages he had never given over to vengeance completely, not like that first time they were threatened in Amaranthine. He could feel it now, a seething, simmering anger, reactive.

_There will be no mercy for us, only tranquility, Sebastian and a lifetime of being locked away in the dark. WE WILL TEAR THEM TO PIECES._

How likely would Hawke still want to be 'friends' if he knew how much of a monster Anders really was?

Decisions made, and they were his own, no spirit to guide him, the voice in his head reduced to a clamoring rage.

Anders raised his hand, "I'm sorry, Hawke."

"Whatever for -"

A simple sleep spell left his fingers. Anders moved forward in time to catch Hawke before he fell to the floor, and quietly lowered him next to the bed, rolling him slightly under the mattress. He threw the covers over the edge, letting the fabric drape over him so that at a brief glance the bed looked as though it was abandoned in haste.

Someone was turning the handle on their door slowly, but he had thrown the bolt.

Taking a vial of elfroot gel from his belt, Anders slicked the hinges of the window and it swung outwards silently.

The moon was at its zenith, and all was silent save for an occasional bark from dogs that almost reminded him of Ferelden. Anders braced one foot on the edge and hopped over the ledge, his boots silent on the grass.

Getting out was the easy part, and now he turned, raised his staff, and broke the window with the blunt end. Taking one step backward, he avoided the shattering glass, most of them flying in towards the room, but the blanket should have protect Hawke from it.

The commotion drew the templars' attention, and if there was one thing templars could be relied upon, it was their inability to sneak. The sound of metal boots clomping through the inn echoed in the silence. They were not as loud as he remembered, but he had no time to think on it.

Anders turned and ran, casting a small fireball behind him enough to singe the grass to draw his prey forward, little ripples of the fade in the mortal world that templars could feel in their blood, as if he was leaving a trail of cheese out for mice.

For Anders, they were hunters. For vengeance, they were prey.

Why the chantry sent only two templars to apprehend the two most wanted fugitive in Thedas was a very good question, and that brought to mind other more baffling riddles. Anders calculated as he ran; eight days since they left Cumberland, three before that through the Planasene forest. The amount of red tape the templars had to wade through at the gallows to get a warrant for his arrest would have taken two weeks, if not more, since the fall of the Chantry and the battle in the gallows. According to Hawke, Aveline and Cullen both agreed to buy Hawke time enough to get far, far away.

Though whether they were doing him a favor or simply wanted to get rid of a man dogged by trouble was up for debate.

None of it added up to anything, but no matter. This was a simple decision, he was a mage, they were templars, and when one met the other in the wild, he killed them.

Anders turned and let loose a fireball blindly, too dark to aim but he had a vague idea where those pools of lyrium were, shining like beacons outlined with fade light in his eyes.

Only after the flames caught, the two men rolling around on the grass like pigs in mud, did he see that they weren't templars at all, or if they were, then they did not wear the sun of the chantry on their shields. But his senses weren't fooling him; those two were definitely filled with lyrium. He had seen the occasional templar hired by mercenary groups before, but the upkeep was too costly for just raiding and robbery.

The only people who made enough sovereign to hire templars were -

\- Shadows moved in his peripheral vision and he readied a lightning storm. None of these people were templars, no song in their blood that called to the magic in his veins. It also meant he couldn't locate them in the dark. Maybe a flare was in order here.

An arrow whistled by his head, barely missing him, a slight burning pain and heat seeping down over earlobe as the air nicked his skin. He threw one fireball upwards, lighting the little clearing for a brief second.

"Don't shoot at his head, you idiot! We can't sell him if he's dead!"

 _Well, fuck._ Slavers. Of course. Not just regular thieves, but people who were out to hunt mages. Experienced enough with the trade to hire templars.

Now he wished he had began the fight in the inn. People who tipped off the locations of traveling mages to slavers deserved to die.

But it was too late now. He had run more than half a mile, and at least he lured them far enough away that Hawke was in no real danger.

Even if he was caught, they'd be taking him to Tevinter anyway. It'd save him the walk. Anders laughed, feeling slightly ridiculous that he would ever risk temporary enslavement for the sake of a wagon ride, but a full week of trekking through muddy roads and sleeping with nothing more than a bush for cover could make a man desperate. Though he never would have gone through with that particular errant thought, he might just relate it to Hawke later and be the one telling a bad joke for once.

With a smile he let the chain lightning fly. Once he told his warden commander that all he wanted in life was the right to shoot lightning at fools, among other things, and slavers who dared target a warden mage abomination definitely fell under the category of fools.

They screamed as the air crackled with energy, his ability to draw mana quickly as though channeling the fade feeding the chain, and the few scrapes he garnered while running and the cut on his ear close themselves, a sign that people were dying.

Merrill said to him once that spirits and demons were one and the same, and as vengeance sopped up life force and gave it to Anders, he almost agreed. They were one, and not one, his vision blurry with hints of the fade while spirit energy danced along his skin.

Then the mortal realm hit him as one running full-speed into a stone wall, and his connection to the fade was severed. He was disoriented all at once, the feeling not unlike standing in front of a templar as he cast annulment, his mind blanking out as one tranquil.

Pain bloomed and it felt more than unpleasant, flaring out from his collarbone like a thousand suns.

Of course. If they brought templars, they damned well brought magebane, the only smart thing they have managed so far. Definitely not the halfhearted ambush in the inn or a race through darkness that led them here.

Now they had marred their merchandise, and maybe he couldn't be sold after all.

The poisoned burned into his skin, and he gasped, touching the tiny nick of a wound made with an expertly thrown blade that glanced off him, no real wound, barely a touch. A net was thrown over him, and he gave a token effort of struggling but he knew that one mage with no magic at all couldn't fight a band of rogues.

"Where's the other one?" A dark skinned woman approached him, blade in hand and eyes narrowed, staring down the line of her nose while taking a vial of poison from her belt and slicking it over the point of her dagger.

"Probably ran the other way back at the inn," a voice replied somewhere behind Anders. "You know these mage types. No loyalty in their blood, the lot of them."

 _That's where you're wrong._ Anders' words had no time to travel beyond his throat. The woman nicked him with the poison, this one filling his limbs with lead and added weights to his eyelids.

_Hawke will come to find me. He always will._


	4. Sold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders arrives in Minrathous; Varric catches up to Hawke.

By the time they reached Minrathous, Anders had lost count of the days.

On occasion there were glimpses of the outside, but he spent most of his time in a covered wagon, constantly dosed on magebane and deathroot sleeping draught. Three others were with him, all mages escaping from elsewhere to Tevinter, hopefully soon trying to escape from Tevinter to elsewhere. If he wasn't so doped up he'd have tried to convince them to overpower their captors by now.

He had managed to stay free for years, running from more than one ages-old establishment, and somehow, after he had planted the seed of freedom for all mages in Thedas, he had ended up enslaved. The damned irony of the Imperium was killing him.

Someone had shaved him, carefully and cleanly, not making a single scratch on his pretty face. As Fenris told him once, _the magisters believes that all things worth doing are worth doing beautifully,_ and he could attest to that, given the way the elf's lyrium brands curled and accentuated his musculature, shining through his armour as he ghosted through their battlefield.

Perhaps now with his chains more obvious the elf would actually buy his argument that they were the same, slaves to one institution or another.

A fellow passenger who was deemed harmless enough that they did not bind his hands, an enchanted collar the only indicator that he was a prisoner at all, was tasked with giving him his sleeping draught. Anders thought him broken already, or just smart, in this case. They would never have allowed Anders a hint of freedom, his runed cuffs were attached together behind his back, with a chain running down to his ankles behind him, short enough that he couldn't rear up and kick.

Some chains were invisible, and he was never going to follow orders in the hopes of being tossed a bone. Anders would much rather wear his own honestly and proudly, _this_ , he could raise his cuffs and gesture at them, _is what's keeping me here._

Hands touched him while he drifted in and out of sleep, clinical in their motions of undressing him and bounding him, feeding him broth and massaging the liquid down his throat, taking care of his other bodily needs as though he was an invalid. It occurred to him that his captors were afraid of him; he had killed three of their own, two expensive contractors and one they knew well, but they dared not harm him even to exact revenge.

"Don't think for a minute that we're soft on you, mage." It was that dark skinned woman again, though the faces of his captors blurred as did everything else. "You'll get yours soon enough."

It grew warmer as they traveled, and after they passed the silent plains - he could feel the blight calling to the blood in his veins, a gibbering of almost intelligible voices and even they could not save him - they kept him under a canopy to keep his skin pale but did not clothe him again.

Shrugging the drugs off one layer at a time, he finally woke, blinking up at a colourful canopy in the slave market in what he could only assume to be Minrathous. His muscles were sore, as he had been bound this way with his arms behind him for days. With a twist of his hips he tried to sit up but a startled yelp and a quickly muttered warning from the outside told him that the cage was only three feet high.

He attempted to kick the back of the cage open, but touching the bars gave him a shock, electricity running down his nerves and not the nice kind. They had him chained like an exotic animal, the same as those cages he had seen in the Denerim market, raised chest-high on a wooden stand so that any passerby could examine near every part of him closely without crouching.

At least his legs were free. Anders stretched them out, enjoying the feeling of soreness turning to sharp pain then quickly fading again. The cage was nowhere near long enough for him to stretch out entirely, and he had to curve his upper body near sideways, but it was worth it.

"I was starting to think you'd never wake up or I'd messed up on the dosage of your sleeping potion. Phew." it was that same mage again, the one who had been taking care of him. Despite his own status as a healer and having had his share of taking care of people and seeing them at their most vulnerable, he could not help the blush that rose unbidden.

The mage was plain, his brown hair and freckled cheeks unremarkable, but his brown eyes were suffused with kindness. Anders clutched at the image of him mentally, glad for any familiarity amidst his monstrous predicament.

"Are you hungry? Thirsty? Need anything?"

"Thank you," Anders said. His voice hit the edge of the cage and fizzled out, and his caretaker shook his head.

"Sorry about that. I forgot that your cage is thrice enchanted. You can talk but I can't hear you, it's electrified, and as long as you're in it you can't use your magic," the mage tucked a lock of his hair behind his ear and sighed. "I'll just show you things, and if you want them, nod, all right?"

Anders nodded in assent, and he nodded again vigorously as the mage showed him a bowl of watery stew. He was consumed by a great hunger; whatever sustenance they had been giving him came in liquid form and not nearly enough for his warden appetite. The end of his cage was slid upwards the few inches required to push the bowl through, and Anders was left to figure out how he was going to eat without his hands.

There was no dignity in hunger, and starving to death served his escape plans not at all. Anders turned to lie on his stomach, but the length of the cage was not enough for him to stretch out. He settled eventually on supporting himself on his chest and his knees, the position naturally arching his back, with his bound arms resting snugly on his lower back.

He mouthed at the edge of the bowl, tipping it slightly for the liquid to flow into his mouth, but as he drank the soup he realized that the stew was not thickened properly so the solid meats and vegetables were at the bottom of the bowl.

Turning his head this way and that to be sure that no one was watching him, Anders dipped into the bowl and swiped at the bits of food with his tongue, the motion stretching out his back. He was vaguely aware that he was waving his arse in the air, but he was so intent on food - glorious, solid food he hadn't had in at least a week, if not more - that he really did not care. Surviving was always the first order of business.

"I'm guessing _this_ is what your boss recommended?" A gruff voice said by his cage, shadow falling over Anders, who turned immediately to glare at him. "I'm not in the habit of training wild beasts. Just how dangerous is he to deserve cuffs and an enchanted cage?"

The man who spoke was middle-aged, maybe in his late forties, the hair at his temples a steely gray, a mismatch to the storm cloud darkness of his eyes. There were wrinkles at the edges of his mouth, the kind probably acquired over pursing his lips in disapproval for years, and a furrow between his brows to match.

"He killed two templars and one archer before we managed to subdue him, lord Saul."

Anders turned his glare on the mage instead.

All this time he had thought that the man was simply another slave, and he felt suddenly betrayed. The slit in his cage was still open. Anders inched forward, pushing at the bowl with his head until it slipped out of the slot to shatter on the stone tiles below.

"Oh, and he's insolent, too." The older man snorted, though he did not sound displeased at all. He looked away from Anders and examined his nails instead as if anything was more interesting than a naked Anders in a cage.

It was a blatant bargaining tactic, but Anders couldn't help feeling ever so slightly insulted.

"So, tell me. How much does Sarra wish to swindle out of me for this gem?"

"Um, a hundred, ur," Saul raised an eyebrow as if daring him to raise beyond that, but the timid mage stammered on. "A hundred and fifty gold pieces, my lord."

"I won't pay more than eighty. Look at him," Saul walked around the cage, and if Anders felt exposed before, the man's eyes turned him inside out now. "Even with makeup he'll never see the inside of twenty-five again, and who knows how much time I'll have to spend on him? He's obviously disobedient if you have to lock him up like this. Sarra should be paying me to take him."

"Um, I'm not, I don't, I'm not allowed to give discounts, my lord. I'm just a clerk," the mage mumbled, staring down at his feet.

"I brought eighty," Saul clapped his hands once, and a large man, built like an ox and well armoured, especially considering the climate, appeared from outside of Anders' limited visual range. He handed Saul a purse, which he tossed to the mage. "Have him delivered by the end of today. If he proves to be useful within three months I'll have the rest of the money sent."

The clerk heaved a long, suffering sigh as Saul disappeared from sight, walking away on his own two feet, Anders noted. By the way Fenris went on about things he thought every slave owner went around on litters. He placed the bag of money into a strongbox, and as Anders watched him go to the end of his stall to fetch a broom, the jangling of metal drew his attention to a long chain attached to one of the man's ankles.

Anders realized then that this mage was a slave, and one owned by a slaver. He wanted to apologize, and he mouthed the word 'sorry' as the mage came near again, but he just shook his head at Anders.

"It's fine. You're angry. You have a right to be angry." He began to sweep up the bits of broken pottery. "I'm Naos, by the way. Repeat escapee with a major in entropy."

There was something they had in common then, one escaping from the templars, and the other from mages. Anders wondered where Naos thought he could have gone outside of Tevinter, but he had no voice with which to ask.

"I need to cover you up with a tarp, since you've been sold," Naos looked apologetic as he unfolded a dark sheet of canvas. At Anders' emphatic head shaking, he asked, "you're afraid of the dark. Oh dear, that's not good. Um, how about I cover you most of the way but leave the front? It's better than being naked."

That it was. Somehow Naos made Anders feel as though he had a choice in the matter, though he could have very well thrown the tarp over the cage and easily ignored the silent screams. He nodded, and the tarp was draped over him, leaving a foot of the cage uncovered so that Anders could see the street.

Now that his hunger and thirst were sated, Anders allowed his curiosity to take in the wonders of Minrathous. It was only a single street, and the slave market, at that, but the buildings he could see in the near distance were magnificent. He spent a lot of time as a teenager inside a Tevinter stone building with its ornate archways and tall pillars, but they were overlaid with Ferelden sensibilities, simple wooden furniture and woolen rugs to keep out the chill without the excessive gilding that his Tevinter robes suggested.

Here, carved stone decorated the sides of buildings , gold leaf was hammered over everything, and even the plain walls were covered in paintings. The ground of the market was paved with stone in multiple colours, a mosaic of ocean waves in blue, green, and white. Men and women clad in colourful robes cinched and held by embroidered belts and jeweled clasps moved through the market, as though what was on sale were rugs and vases, not people.

Still, it was eerily quiet. For a place full of people being sold against their will, Anders expected more crying, wailing and gnashing of teeth. But the people here standing nude chained to rows of stocks seemed resigned already, though they'd only just arrived. They were most of them dirty and unwashed, covered in the soils of travel, unlike Anders who was clean and shaven with fresh scented oils in his hair.

People were unequal then, even in slavery. He was a mage, so his price was high anyway, and one that managed to kill templars was probably highly sought after. He wondered if magisters would use phylacteries to keep track of their slaves. Anders shuddered; he hoped not.

Important looking people came and went on their silk cushioned litters, carted around by boys barely in their teens. None of them looked to be wearing mage robes. What they wore were overly embellished, golden curlicued affairs, but there was no real magic in them. Magisters did not buy their own slaves then, or at least not in their raw, freshly captured form.

Anders watched from his cage as these men examined slaves as if they were animals, forcing their jaws open to examine their teeth, lifting their private parts to check under them as though there was benefit to bigger balls. He rolled his eyes; the Tevinter understanding of the healing arts and the importance of their physical bits were apparently sub-par. Bloodmages made bad healers.

He saw buildings he recognized in woodcuts, tall pillars supporting a stone canopy surrounding an open plaza, filled with all manner of stalls like those in the Denerim market. He was too far too see what was on sale, but he figured they were probably things sold in markets everywhere, with more magical paraphernalia.

By the time Naos approached him again, he was fantasizing himself walking through the market buying a new robe. He no longer had a stitch to his name, and how he used to love the cut of those robes.

"I'm so sorry about this," Naos said with his permanent ingratiating frown. Everyone had their strategy, and Anders used to charm his way out of the tower; Naos probably did it by appearing completely harmless. "I'll have to reach in there and give you a sleeping drug so we can transport you. It won't hurt a bit?"

Anders didn't believe him the same way Naos didn't sound like he believed that himself. But what was he about to do, bite himself out of the cage? As the slot opened again, Anders looked away, and the dagger nicked the skin on the outside of his shoulder, Naos kindly picking a spot that caused the least amount of pain.

Perhaps Tevinter wasn't as bad as Fenris said it was. Even with the slavery and blood magic, there were some nice people - one single nice mage slave, in particular. Anders held on to that thought as the drug again pulled him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

*

There were many below-par pubs in Nevarra, but only one decent dockside brothel. It was a lot like the Pearl of Denerim, with sensible furnishings and rough cotton sheets in a nondescript brown chosen to disguise stains.

Hawke rolled over in the bed he had found himself in for the past four days, and bumped into the blond-haired, honey brown-eyed man named - Swen? Sam? Stan? - something or other. In good old tactless fashion he blurted, "what's your name again?"

"It's Sven," the man eyed him fondly, ducking in for a kiss. "But you prefer to call me Anders. So you just keep doing that if that's what you want, love."

Ah, a professional. He didn't even look remotely offended. Hawke rubbed at his eyes, the pressure setting off a throbbing between his ears and suddenly everything was too bright and too loud.

"Sven," he said, because it was only polite, and he had a shred of manners left. "Could you be a dear and get me a drink?"

"Anything for you, love," Sven hastily pulled on a house robe with a hem that hit modestly just below the knee.

Garrett had been marinating his liver for days now on a steady stream of whiskey, and he had paid for room, drink, and Sven for two weeks in advance. It wasn't often that the Blushing Mermaid entertained a well-paying guest, and everything from his spoiled appetite to how much Garrett was used to being waited upon screamed noble-slumming-it.

The door opened, revealing a handsome if very vexed looking beardless dwarf with a crossbow. The point of the crossbow was aimed right at Sven's abdomen.

Sven raised his hands in surrender.

"Not you," the dwarf gestured with his chin, and Sven stepped aside. "How long has he been here?"

A normal person would perhaps get out of bed, make himself presentable, and apologize for going on a bender while the world burned down around his ears. Hawke looked up, his eyes going wide for a second, and proceeded to slowly pull the covers over his head.

"I can shoot you through the blanket if that's what you prefer," Varric said.

"All right, all right. I'm up," Hawke raised his hands as well in surrender. "Just give me a minute to get dressed, will you?"

They met at the bar twenty minutes later, and Hawke noted that he had never seen Varric so outwardly angry in all their years of friendship. Maybe he was nearly as mad when Bartrand left them in the deep roads. That came as a close second.

With more drink came not clarity but a lessening of his headache, and slowly but surely Varric coaxed the sob story out of Hawke, from the discovery that templars were after them to the sleep spell that found Hawke waking alone in a deserted inn, then Hawke tracking the trail until he found the dead bodies.

Anders had disappeared. Hawke figured that he probably pushed too hard for a relationship instead of whatever Anders wanted from him, and it was a easy, convenient place to leave.

Varric looked contemplative, and it was a little disconcerting. The facts were as plain as day, were they not? Anders killed the templars and ran away. Unless he missed something terribly obvious again and he was an idiot.

Which was highly likely, it pained him to admit.

"And you searched all around that clearing and you couldn't figure out which way he went?" Varric said finally, as he finished his ale.

"No, and I was pretty thorough. I stayed there until morning so I checked the ground by day light. The track from the inn to the clearing was really messy but the forest around the clearing wasn't touched at all."

"You're an idiot," Varric sighed.

"But -"

"Blondie leaves tracks a mile wide. He doesn't watch where he steps," Varric recounted all those things he encountered in the Planasene while they tracked down Anders the last time. "If he comes across a low hanging branch, he doesn't duck under it. He breaks it. Don't you think it's strange that he managed to go from that to leaving no evidence at all within a week?"

"Ur," he stared at Varric, but his thinking was still hampered by his hangover. Hawke shrugged, though the colour was already draining from his face, his stomach twisting into a knot with apprehension. He managed, "maybe?"

"Sometimes I wonder if shooting you will actually improve your ability to think. I can't imagine it getting any worse, anyway." Varric stared at him in mild bewilderment. "Someone's kidnapped him, and now the trail's gone cold and that inn is probably crawling with templars. Way to go, Hawke."

It took a moment to sink in, and then Hawke was reduced to uttering nothing but invectives for a few minutes.

"You'll be able to find him, right, Varric?" Hawke placed a hand on his friend's arm, his eyes going puppy-like in an instant. "Can you?"

"We're looking for a man named Anders, who looks something like that, and he could be anywhere in Thedas." Varric thumbed in the direction of Sven, who was standing near the door of Hawke's old room, twirling a lock of hair around one finger. "You might as well have asked me to find a single Ferelden in Kirkwall during the blight."

Hawke kept on staring, though the effect of his pout was diminished by the copious amount of rough, black beard.

"You're impossible." Varric sighed, rubbing his temples, "I'll have to let all our friends know that Blondie is missing, and you're the one who lost him."

"I'm sorry. Fuck. I just thought he finally left me, you know? He told me in Cumberland that he wanted to go on alone. And I was so mad that he didn't even say goodbye," Hawke downed the rest of his drink, and rested his forehead on the bar. "How could I have been so stupid?"

"Because you are a selfish brat," Varric pushed his mug across the bar top and hopped off the stool. "Not everything is about you. Now get your things and let's go."

Varric knew only one thing for sure; the templars didn't have Anders. If they did they would have hung him off the side of the gallows by now, as an example to all other iconoclast mages. The list grew short after that, and the only logical line of thought led him to slavers.

His contacts in the Imperium could be numbered on one hand. Blondie might be in for a very long wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally done setting the stage. Next chapter we begin Anders' traning.


	5. Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders gets a bath.

Anders was still half asleep when he was lowered into a pool of scalding hot water.

Steam filled the room he was brought into. He could taste it as a sharp sweet scent at the back of his tongue, and the air was so heavy with it he felt he should drown.

A pair of dainty hands, soft and small, was rubbing soap all over him.

 _It was rather indulgent that in Tevinter even slaves had slaves to wash them._ Then he opened his eyes and he thought he might have been in the fade, hazy white steam obscuring even the walls so that the room he was in seemed endless. He was also face to face with a sloth demon.

The only time he had met one was during his Harrowing, and sloth was definitely one of the uglier demons, with half its face melted and seemingly sewn to itself. It left him puzzled at the time, since that was not a face to inspire slumbering at all; by any standard of beauty it was nightmare fuel.

Instinctively, he yelped and kicked at the bottom of the pool where he was left draping over the edge, trying to get away from the demon face. Then he panicked and kicked some more as he realized that his arms were chained at the wrists, the ends of the metal disappearing somewhere in the mist. But the demon was looking frightened and kept putting its finger - a small, dainty, white finger - in front of its mouth, signalling silence.

The splashing water finally sobered him entirely, and he saw that the 'demon' was an elvhen girl, a large patch of a burn scar running from one widow's peak, diagonally across and over one eye and her cheek, ending just below her ear. Her flaxen hair grew in patches where it was near the scar. Where her eye sat in the burned tissue, the pupil was cloudy and unseeing.

The rest of her face was spotless, and she had the pristine fine skin of elves. She was beautiful, once, and still painfully young, though it was difficult to tell the ages of elves. Merrill was in her late twenties and she looked all of sixteen. The one eye that looked at him in entreaty was a lush viridian green, and her lips were full and lusciously pink.

It was love at first sight; like the first time he saw Ser-Pounce-a-Lot as its fuzzy head peeked out of a leather pouch. She inspired the instinct to pick her up and hug her.

"Will you get in trouble if I talk?" Anders said softly, and the girl shook her head. "Can you talk?"

She shook her head again, eyes glancing sadly to one side as though she was ashamed. Anders studied her perfect lips and pointy chin, set over a graceful, white neck. The short tunic she wore left nothing to the imagination, unadorned, worn for the utility of leaning over a bathing pool and staying mostly dry. Anders had to whip his eyes away.

Once upon a time when he was young and foolish and charming, he had many tricks to lure young women into his bed. He had lost that urge to be constantly amused, but the skills were still there. Befriending all the slaves around him was the only way for him to plan an escape.

"Do you want to see a magic trick?" He asked, giving her his most charming smile, never more thankful for his naturally warm eyes that also made him such a great healer.

She shook her head and began to back away, fear flashing in her eyes. It bacame painful for him to see the fear of magic in another slave of Tevinter. It forced him to see that it wasn't only Fenris who was mistreated. It was a common occurrence.

Anders made calming, shushing noises, "sh - no, not that kind of magic. It's just a trick. No magic." He rattled his chains, "see? Runed cuffs. I can't use magic."

She still looked fearful, but she did not say no and she moved back to where she was before. Though whether that was because she wanted to find out about the trick or that she was never given the opportunity to refuse anything, he had no way of knowing.

"Well, I'm going to guess your name. All you have to do is look at me the whole time I'm doing it, all right?" Anders let a hint of velvet slip into his voice, and she was fascinated already, head tilting to one side as she waited.

"Hmmm," he let his voice fall into a low hum, a spectrum of sounds, and she leaned in, rapt. "Mmm...Maa...Mi...Mir...Mira. Mira!"

Her smile was as the sun peeking over rain clouds, golden and bright, and even that only a suggestion of the beauty she once was. Mira clapped her hands and did a little bop from the waist, her whole manner changing as her shoulders shook with silent laughter.

"It's Mirabella, actually. She's only Mira to her friends." Giving the two of them no warning to his presence, Saul approached on bare feet, seemingly materializing in the mist. He was dressed for a bath, a white towel wrapped around his hips.

The elvhen girl Anders would thereafter call Mira folded herself into a grovelling pose, kneeling and touching her forehead to the tiled floor, unconcerned with the water matting her thin wispy hair. Her entire body shook with fear.

Anders thought he saw Saul's shoulders slump, as though in resignation.

"You have not displeased me, Mira. But you are not needed here," Saul said, letting his towel drop to the tiles as though this girl wasn't even here. "Go on. Prepare the rest of his room."

"Oh, so I get my own room now, do I?" Anders said in a mocking tone.

Mira turned to stare at him, eyes far too wide for her face, looking as terrified as a drowned kitten, the image helped along with wet strands of hair matted to her cheeks. But there was no time for him to ask her what she was so afraid of - not that she could have answered anyway - before Saul barked out a command and she scurried out of the room.

Then he was in a world of pain for a brief single second that seemed to go on forever.

It was alien, not like being cut open or shot with magic, but an internal twisting as if his blood was attacking him from the inside, growing spikes and digging into his muscles. When it was gone he could remember the pain vividly like an old wound, a grave injury that he had to check to see if it was still gaping open.

Saul showed him a stone set into a bracelet he wore, a dark green chalcedony with blood red flecks. He tapped at it with a finger ominously, And Anders felt his heart race at the sight of it. He said, "this is linked to your blood. And that was for speaking without permission."

Anders wanted to scream. If there was a punishment for screaming out of turn, he did not want to find out what it was.

"You may ask me questions, if you phrase them respectfully," Saul stepped into the water gracefully and sat down on a stone bench built into the pool, a lip of material all the way around its edge. "And if you have nothing to say, I'll ask you questions, and you will answer them respectfully. Do you understand?"

Anders nodded, and when Saul tipped his head inquisitively, he said, "yes."

"Yes, master," Saul prompted.

"Yes, _master_ ," Anders slanted the word with a sneer. He was hit with the pain again, this time for much longer. When he glared at Saul after it was done, he was punished with the same pain, three times in a row, one second each, with enough room in between for him to breathe and remember what it was like to be free of pain.

Anders' head stung where he banged it into the tiled floor; the muscles in his shoulders and his arms twitched, and there was water all over the tiles from his convulsions as his body fought against the foreign magic.

"You mistake insolence for freedom. It is not," Saul had moved close enough for Anders to see the faint violet colouring of his eyes, lightning bolts amidst storm clouds. "Heal yourself. Your head is bleeding. Tell me you understand."

"Yes," Anders gasped, voice scratchy from screaming, though he did not remember doing so. As he looked up into Saul's expectant gaze, he added, "master."

As soon as the word left his mouth Anders felt the warmth of mana coursing through him, and his instinct to fight took over. He readied a fireball, hot and scorching, with enough power behind it to burn the man to ashes. But with no staff or even his hands to focus the magic, his only option was to materialize the fire out of thin air, and with Saul so close Anders was bound to burn himself. Risky business, that, but he had done worse things that harmed his own body to get out of worse scrapes.

The spell fizzled out harmlessly, the air in front of him filling with raw arcane potential that led to nothing. And Saul, his expression ever neutral, wrapped an almost gentle hand into Anders' hair, now wet from his struggles in the pool, quickly lifted his head up from the edge before zapping him again.

Hopelessness descended like a shroud as Anders came to, realizing that his cuffs were probably Qunari in origin. He might as well had converted to the Qun for all the freedom his leash allowed.

"Only your creation spells work. And since you have no hands to write them with, it means no glyphs. Now heal your head and stop trying to fight me," Saul let him go.

Anders struggled to hold his head upright as he healed the small wound, letting the energy wash over him and soothing the bruises he had acquired over the last few minutes, his previous rebellion costing him in more stamina than he thought possible. While the pain turned him senseless he must have thrashed hard against the tiles.

The way Saul looked at him was eerily calm. He seemed devoid of emotion; he wasn't angry with Anders for his impudence at all, rather treating his little outbursts the way an experienced mabari trainer indulged a new puppy. Gifted with near bottomless patience, he expected the new puppy to kick, bite, and spray, and a little punishment was necessary to bring it to heel.

"What is your name, boy?" Saul checked the head wound, and cupping handfuls of water and bringing it up above Anders, he washed away the blood. The warm water was soothing on his skin and despite his misgivings Anders did not squirm.

"Anders," he hadn't gone by his real name for years, and he was not about to let these people command him by his true name. Besides, all his friends only knew him by Anders.

If Hawke was out looking for him, he needed every bit of help he could get.

"Really. There are a lot of Anders in this city, but you are _different_ looking enough that it suits you," he seemed satisfied that it was not a real name. A name was something he owned, a smidgen of identity.

It was disquieting how little Anders had of identity in the first place. His pillow was in his pack, and though he was willing to give it up not too long ago, it was one of the few things that defined him. His coat and its black feathers he parted ways with in Cumberland, and his pillow was gone too; the slavers had taken it.

Even Justice was barred from him, in the part of his magic that he could not access.

Saul tipped Anders' chin up with one finger and studied him, turning his head this way and that to examine the sharp cheekbones and the long fringes of his eyelashes.

His hands were soft, free of callouses, the hands of a scholar or a merchant. There was no scarring on him, but he was not soft as expected of one who led a life of privilege, and for a man of middling age he was in good shape. With the voice of Justice constantly disapproving of his thoughts of the lewd kind, Anders hadn't gawped at a man like this in years, and Saul was extraordinarily attractive even by the standards of Hawke's friends.

"Like what you see?" Saul asked, sounding amused. As Anders turned away, blushing, Saul's voice turned stern. "I asked you a question."

"Yes, master." Anders said through gritted teeth, unwilling to submit yet his body was already beginning to fear the pain. As quick it came and went, it was a disturbing, thorns from the inside out kind of invasion that smelled of blood magic.

"You could have been sold to a blood mage, or someone ugly and old, or even worse, to the assembly. They'd send you down into the mines, or keep you in a cage to bleed you when they need to power a ritual." He stroked a hand down Anders' chest, tweaking one nipple then another with exploratory touches, "I'm one of the more reasonable brokers. Be grateful."

 _I'd be grateful when I escape, thank you very much._ Anders was curious as to Saul's station, however. What did he mean by 'broker?' Was it literal, as someone who bought slaves to break them, or did he buy and sell them for profit?

Saul's hands continued to examine him, squeezing him here and there to test the resilience of his muscles, prodding the underside of an arm checking for body fat. Anders bit back a moan as they sank beneath the water and lifted his balls roughly, his arousal obvious from all the handling. Two fingers were pressed behind his sac, rubbing a patch of sensitive skin that had gone untouched for far too long.

"I want you to hold on as long as possible. If you can, that is," Saul snickered as though he expected Anders to last no more than seconds.

If proving him wrong wasn't motivation enough, the pain that might follow disobedience gave Anders the inclination to clench down and think of unsavory things, not the hands that manipulated him expertly, thumb brushing the underside of his cock and the rough tips of fingers tapping against his entrance.

They were experienced hands, one settling in behind his sac to push and tease, palming his balls to check how close he came. Whenever they began to lift away, nearing release, the other hand that lightly stroked up and down down his shaft moved away, keeping him on the edge. Anders had to fight to not lift his hips after it, the allowance of Saul's touch shameful enough that he did not want to beg as well, an action the essence of giving up whatever will he still stubbornly held on to.

He could not stop the things that were done to him, but he could at least stop himself from chasing after his handler's touch.

When finally the pressure became too much, Saul's hand clamped down over the base of Anders' cock, stopping the inevitable. The pressure had not abated at all, but sat heavy in the pit of his stomach. Anders whimpered, a bereft mew that echoed off the tiled walls, and the shame of it sent a flush all through him.

"No control whatsoever. Like the rest of you," the hands moved away from his groin entirely, and moved to rub down the length of his thighs. "I don't know what I expected, really. The only thing you're good for right now is pain."

"No -" Anders said, and only realized his mistake when a dark hand slipped behind his head to cushion him as he convulsed again. This time it lasted so long that when he came to he could still hear the echo of his own scream off the walls, trailing off to a series of quiet sobs too loud for the small room.

"The rules are very simple, Anders." Saul spoke as one would to a child, slowly and steadily, enunciating every syllable. "You will answer a question when I ask it, you will not speak unless spoken to, and you will phrase your answers respectfully. You will protest _nothing,_ and your body is not your own. Your only choice is to obey, and if you don't, I will _make_ that choice for you. Understand?"

"Yes, master," Anders said, voice hoarse from crying. Though he spoke in between intermittent sobs still, Saul seemed to be satisfied with his answer.

Then Anders was being buoyed by those strong arms in the water, lifted so that he sat in Saul's lap, and with one hand hooked over Anders' waist, Saul stroked his hair with comforting, confident pressure until his crying subsided.

When Saul got up to leave, he bent to pick up the discarded towel and it was hard for Anders not to look at the lines of him, smooth dusky skin belying his age, years that only showed in his graying hair and small wrinkles near his eyes. His muslces were well defined over his hips, and he still had the dimples at the base of his spine that were rare even in young men.

Not a mage, so not a magister of the ruling class, but rich enough to own slaves. Skilled with men, apparently, by the way he handled Anders, and beautiful enough to be a prize draw at the Rose back in Kirkwall.

Then as his gaze wandered up all the way to Saul's face, he was smirking back at Anders, who looked away when he saw that he was caught ogling.

"I'll allow that first transgression, but from now on, keep your eyes below the waist if you must look. Mira will come in and clean you up. Don't give her any trouble," Saul's voice echoed through the hallways as he disappeared from sight. "Or I'll hear about it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you catch the Being John Malkovich reference? ;)


	6. Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders finds out where he's going to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ropes and lots of it.

Anders' room wasn't quite what he was expecting, considering what little of the villa he had managed to see, from the steam baths through the airy hallways to Saul's lavishly furnished personal suite.

His alcove - after one look at it Anders refused to call it a room even in his head - was part of Saul's bedroom, and could not properly be called a room at all even by darktown standards. It was only a little wider than his arm span, and the floor was a perfect square.

The floor was slightly slanted towards the center, where a hole the width of his hand led into the sewers. Considering the echo that resulted as he yelled into it experimentally, Anders' vivid imagination painted it as what probably looked like the deep roads.

All three walls and the ceiling were lined with rounded metal loops, so numerous they formed a dense decorative pattern from a distance. The wall itself was made of something black and smooth, cool to the touch, which reminded him of polished obsidian.

The open side of the alcove faced the side of a large bed, its four ornate legs lifting it off the floor near waist level, so high that there were steps leading up to it. Screens separated the bedroom from the sitting room, and beyond them he could see nothing, but he was allowed the view of the entire dressing area, presumably so the room's prisoner could be seen by Saul at night.

There were veiled archways on either side of the bed, leading out on to a balcony; shapes that hinted of railings could be seen beyond the gauzy curtains. Minrathous was too warm all year round to warrant an enclosed bedroom.

His forearms were tied together behind him somewhat comfortably, hands clasping his elbows. A silver collar was locked around his neck, inlaid with jewels, and a leather lead was attached to the front of it. Presumably it served the same purpose as the cuffs, since the cuffs were removed as soon as the collar went on. Mira pushed the end of the lead into one of the many metal loops that made up the back wall and knotted it quickly, effectively holding the back of his neck to the wall.

Anders gave his surroundings a closer look; each of the metal loops were no farther than an inch apart. There was not a stick of furniture in sight.

"How am I supposed to sleep in here?" He knew he would have no answer from her, but still it felt better to air the absurdity of it, by saying it aloud. "Do I have to sleep standing up?"

She nodded, and while he mulled over that bit of news, she took from the bedroom a loop of black rope. With this she wound over and over his upper arms before pushing the ends through the loops in the walls, keeping him from turning.

He could turn his head and ignore the view of Saul's bed, but the dark walls and the closeness of them reminded him so much of a solitary confinement cell that facing a wall was not an option at all.

When Mira dropped to her knees in front of him, he gasped in surprise, "what are you doing? Stop!"

It was plain as day from her shaky hands grasping his hips to the way she clenched her one eye shut that whatever she was doing, she was not doing it willingly. His neck was held in place and his arms were behind his back but he still had some mobility, so Anders settled for turning his body from side to side in an attempt to shake her off.

Mira was stronger than she looked, and he was fatigued from his struggles in the bath, but he was a man nearly twice her size. With silent entreaty she stared up at him, and even if she couldn't speak, the message was plain enough.

_Let me do this, please. Otherwise I'll be punished later._

There were no defenses against that look. Anders closed his eyes and tried to think of Hawke pleasuring him with his mouth the one time they were together. Hawke knew so little then, and probably not much better now. He was inexperienced but eager, taking him down with far too much teeth and not nearly enough tongue. Anders had to talk him through it then. It was sweet.

The discrepancy between then and now was too large for the illusion to hold. Mira pressed her full lips to his flaccid cock, closing her mouth over it entirely, and the warmth of her mouth and her delicate fingers lifting his sac and massaging him expertly brought him to full attention within seconds.

But she was good at this, with her lips covering her teeth just right, deft hands rubbing the skin between his sac and his hole with just the right amount of pressure to please. As his balls tightened up and lifted away from his body, so did she, bringing her mouth off his member. Her hands moved to his thighs, waiting.

Anders started to protest, but he had not wanted her to start doing this in the first place, and asking her to continue also seemed wrong. The urge slowly passed and he began to relax, with Mira poised and staring at his shaft the whole time, the scrutiny making it easier for him to let the erection drop.

The moment he managed it, however, her mouth was on him, rousing him to full mast and bringing him to the edge only to stop again. This time, he begged, "please," _continue, keep going, get it over with_ , but she wasn't listening, completely intent on her task.

Her exact instructions became apparent to him as he was brought close again and let go - she was to keep him hard before the master came back. He chased her mouth as she moved away, but her hands held his hips in place, shaking her head at him, _don't_.

He suffered for her in silence then, savoring whatever sensations she gave him. If he did come and she could not rouse him again before Saul came back, Anders suspected that Mira would be in a world of trouble.

Finally, when he stayed hard all on his own and seemed in no danger of flagging, she quickly tied his legs to the wall where he stood and left to light the sconces to each side of him.

He had never been so aroused in his life. An untouched erection that he was told to maintain was a peculiar thing, and if he had his hands free it would have been something he needed to take care of. The urgency of it dominated his thoughts pushing other concerns out of its way, the desire to penetrate, or to have his cock touched, made all other sensations more pronounced.

The smooth coolness of metal and stone digging into his arse and the back of his thighs, the prickling of his hair along his shoulders, even the irritation of the rough ropes bounding his wrists became a torrent of touches that reminded him where he was not touched at all.

After the four sconces were lit, Mira disappeared for a few minutes, returning with a large spool of black rope, a long knitting needle with a hook on the end, and a small knife.

His arms were untied from each other and stretched straight out to one side, and one at a time she did something that he could only describe as 'lacing him to the wall.' Rope was passed over his arm, hooked through a metal hoop on the wall, then each loop made to pass through each other until the last of it was wrapped over his hand. Then carefully she did the same thing with each of his fingers until he could just barely wiggle them. The process was repeated with his other arm.

It was a very calculated method; his limbs were freed one at a time so that he couldn't fight her even if he wanted to, and at any rate he had a feeling that if he did, next time she would be asked to drug him beforehand.

She looped a fresh length of rope behind his neck, measuring it out with the length of the room a few times before she deemed it long enough before cutting it with the knife. Holding the ends together, she passed a bead the size of a grape through it, then twisting the ropes a few times so it seemed to form a thicker strand, she carefully parted the strand to pass over his genitals, using the bead to hold it just behind his balls.

A vial of oil was produced from her belt, and with this she saturated the rope around his private parts, soothing the friction and preventing it from rubbing him raw.

Mira placed a finger into her mouth and puffed out her cheeks. _Take a deep breath,_ she mimed.

The joined rope was pushed into the cleft of his arse, and pulling the strands apart at the base of his spine, Mira took each strand, looped them over his hips, and passed it through the rope that sat over his abdomen. After that it was a quick looping from front to back and again to pull the strand into a diamond webbing all over his torso, each turn tightening the entire contraption a little until all he could manage were shallow breaths.

When she was finally done, passes of the rope above and beneath his nipples reminding them that they were both pebbled and pointing, she knotted the ends into the wall. With a quick cut of her knife, she trimmed off the ends.

Mira was only only off by six inches or so of rope, on each side. Even as he suffered quietly, the rough fibers already suffocating him as surely as a black tarp, except closer and more complete, he had to be impressed.

With most of her job done, she finished off by binding his legs to the wall, slightly apart and feet flat on the ground, with the same care she gave to his arms.

Then he realized with a horrified start that he would be expected to sleep in it, since she had just spent at least an hour tying him to the wall. Even though his weight was still all supported by his legs, it was already uncomfortable. The bead that sat behind his sac served both as a holder to keep the rope together, pinching the smooth skin behind his balls, and a constant torment. His butt cheeks were pulled apart, and the entire setup made him feel more exposed than if he was completely nude.

To top off the harness, Mira hung a little charm bracelet on his cock, looping it down so it sat near the base. It was wrought in silver and hung with little bells, each one of them made so thin it weighed nearly nothing.

Then she was turning to go and he felt panic rose as a lump in his throat.

"Wait, Mira. Is Saul sleeping in here tonight?"

She nodded.

"So, if I drop this, it will wake him?"

She nodded again. Then she touched his hair in apology for everything she had done as though she was the one responsible for it all, and kissed him lightly on the cheek before leaving, shooting worried glances behind her until she disappeared behind the screens.

Anders breathed shallow, calming breaths, and tried not to let the helpless feeling of having even his fingers tied down overwhelm him. He was still hard and throbbing, and strangely enough his cock was the only part of him not held down by a length of rope.

When Saul finally came in he only briefly glanced at Anders before he disrobed to sleep in the nude. The night was warn enough here that clothing was merely decorative, and in the case of some slaves, optional. A single hanging sconce was lit to the far end of Saul's bed, the flickering flames highlighting the ridges of his muscles. If there was a next time for him to see Isabela again, Anders would tell her that it was not only the slaves in Tevinter that glistened.

The open archways that led out to the balcony let in night air from the sea, fragrant with a hint of salt and seaweed, reminiscent of the Wounded Coast when one of Hawke's 'quests' forced them to camp by the water. Even that he missed, sharing a watch with Hawke and falling asleep on his shoulder.

He tried to remember Hawke's awkward smile over the width of their rented double bed, a distance they dared not cross that he would come to regret as a missed chance, a point in time that could have changed everything.

Before he fell into deep slumber, he thought he saw Saul looking at him and not without affection. His mind must have been playing tricks on him; Hawke's smile and the warmth in his eyes superimposed on Saul's face, confusing his memories.

He dozed, and a sudden jarring pleasure made him gasp. His body had sagged forward in sleep, and each of those lines that crisscrossed his body, and most notably that bead sitting just behind his sac, dug into him. Perhaps he dreamt, and he could not remember what of, but he was grinding his hips against that bead, and what woke him must have been the chiming of the bells.

Mira had thoughtfully oiled his private parts before the ropes were tied on, ostensibly to prevent chafing. But Anders had come to realize that nothing in Saul's house was ever as simple as that.

Anders took as deep a breath as he could with the webbing of rope restricting his breathing, and tried for sleep again.

This time he dreamt of Saul's fingers under him, rubbing circles in the space behind his sac, a tongue running up his cleft, dipping lightly into his hole before continuing on.

He woke thrusting his hips into thin air, each rocking motion sending a jolt of pleasure through him and filled the space near him with the sound of silver bells; but as he forced himself to stop he realized the tongue in his dream was only the oiled ropes slip sliding on his skin.

As he pushed away from that single torturous bead that reminded him of Saul, the two lines across his chest pinched his nipples. There was to be no escape, not from his servitude nor his bonds, the threat of pain or endless humiliation.

Even his silver bells served two purposes. It alerted him to his own wants, and it woke Saul if he became too soft to keep it where it was, though he couldn't will his erection away now if he wanted to. Each tiny movement he made to relieve a pinch where he felt the rope was too tight set off a series of sensations all across his bonds, a feeling that could only be compared to being touched all over by a room full of hands.

They were running over his arms, scratching the space behind his knees, pinching his nipples and rubbing the skin of his sac. They pulled his arse open to expose him and rubbed his perineum to make him want to be filled, and they teased him everywhere except where it brought release.

And they were constant and tireless and could not be convinced to stop.

Near dawn, as his weary body was still unrelieved and wanting, Anders sobbed quietly, the throbbing between his legs becoming too much to even think of falling asleep. He would have begged for cock at this point; if Saul took him down from the wall he would have raise his arse and ask for it like a good little slave. It was one thing to fight Saul, but he was too exhausted to fight his own needs.

 _Your body is not your own,_ Saul had said. If Anders begged him for release, he could expect to be given none.

_You mistake insolence for freedom._

He had no idea what Saul meant by that the day before, though now he had an inkling. Insolence simply gave a master an excuse to punish his slave even more, and that would amuse him; and should a slave prove too petulant, then he would be punished publicly as an example to other slaves. Either way he served his purpose whether he wanted to or not.

But was pretense of obedience not just a kind of manipulation? He could manage that. Anders charmed his way out of the Circle tower itself before, he could charm his way out of punishment until Hawke got here, couldn't he?

When Saul woke, stretched, and came to examine him, Anders did not resist. Even as Saul's hands scratched below his chin as if he was a cat, and tipped his face from side to side to check his colouring, Anders kept his eyes firmly downcast.

Abruptly, Saul began to laugh. It was throaty and somewhat familiar, ending in a little cough, the kind of laugh from a man not used to laughing, bringing to mind a certain elf with green eyes who brooded all the time. He listened to the musical cadence of it, until Saul's eyes narrowed and pain shot through Anders. With no room to move, he could not shake enough to hurt himself, but it was a longer period of pain than Saul had ever given him before.

"You are a terrible liar," Saul said, to a panting, gasping Anders. He was already flushed before, but now the sweat on his skin felt cold and his hair matting his forehead was slimy and uncomfortable. "I'd rather have defiance than dishonesty."

Anders had always been terrible at diamond back. Eventually he had stooped to asking Varric what his tell was, since for the life of him he could not figure it out. Varric smiled at him roguishly then, and said, "Blondie, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but, you _are_ the tell. You're an open book."

Saul had eyes that appeared warm one minute and steely cold the next. It was the cold storm cloud that passed over him as he spoke to Anders now, staring down the length of his nose, "apologize, slave."

That word gave him more courage to defy than even the thought of Hawke staging a rescue. Anders glared, and his words came easily without thought of consequence, "fuck off."

"Well, I did ask for honesty," Saul rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. "But I am obligated to punish you. Reputation to maintain, you understand."

Pain that felt more like a token gesture rocked through him, but only for a brief half-second. Then Saul's hands moved down to Anders' rock hard erection with dried precum a line down the bottom side, brushing little feather touches near the base bringing whimpers out through gritted teeth.

"We'll need to get this taken care of. It's not healthy to keep it hard for more than a day or so, and you act like a chantry brother so you probably haven't come in years." He must have noticed the hopeful glint that rose in Anders' eyes, and he laughed again. "I'm not going to just let you come, slave. That would make me a very poor teacher."

"Like I fucking care," he had pride, at least. Even if he was tied to the wall and treated like a toy, he was still a man, and he wasn't about to beg for release, not from this sadistic egomaniac.

He clenched his jaws against an expected shot of pain that never came. But Saul seemed to study him, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a smile that Anders did not like at all.

Was he just provoked twice over so Saul would have more excuses to punish him? Anders was unused to these mind games; he was used to dealing with Hawke, and he had Hawke wrapped around his little finger.

"It seems pain isn't enough to keep you in line. Mira," he raised his voice, and Mira appeared from behind the screen, bowing. "Send for ice."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it was confusing. Which it could be, because kinbaku set ups can be extremely complicated, even more so than regular -ha!- leather bondage. What Mira wrapped over Anders was a typical karada with extra loops, and you can find instructions on it pretty much everywhere online. It's not hard to make extra loops; all you have to do is start with a longer rope and pull it through from back to front a few more times (and make a few extra twists at the very beginning.) The arms and legs are done each separately with its own length of rope.
> 
> Here's a link to a deviant art photo of a basic one:  
> http://fav.me/db0k7s


	7. Denied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: non-con this chapter.

Leaving his body harness intact, Mira carefully slipped her blade under Anders' ropes and slowly cut him free, starting on the arms first so she could bind them behind him before working on the rest of his bonds.

Mira was weaker than he, not a mage, and the times where she was assigned to taking care of his cleanliness left them alone. If he wanted to escape, he gathered that this was the best time to make a run for it.

But he was too old for hopeless escapes, and running through the streets of Minrathous wearing nothing but black ropes definitely counted as hopeless. On top of that, he had no idea where exactly in the city he was, and for all he knew he might be right across from the Imperial assembly in a villa surrounded by magisters.

Until he had more details of his surroundings, he served his escape plans and Hawke's rescue plans better by staying put and surviving.

Mira led him to Saul's private bathing chamber off one of the doors from his bedroom, where she brushed out his hair, bathed him in perfumed water and rubbed the soreness from his joints. In the hot steam bath he dozed, fatigue heavy behind his eyelids.

This was a reprieve from the constant torment, Mira's hands cool and comforting and firm, kneading the underside of his legs even while the edge of the pool dug into the side of his neck.

Saul's words rang ominously even now, and his imagination tried to fill it in with all the sufferings an innocent block of ice could cause.

Anders had on several occasions been frozen solid by a Cone of Cold. It was unpleasant to be sure, but he would take an honest bit of torture, anywhere from a flogging to the rack, over the insidious slow burning desire that the ropes fanned from embers to flames.

Pain he could rail against. It induced feelings of rage that only strengthened his resolve. This morning, as Saul moved towards him wearing nothing but a smile, the want between his legs had led Anders, and the desire spiked hunger in his eyes.

It had made him doubt himself though he was a healer and he should have known better. Both pleasure and pain were brought about from the outside in, only skin deep without his need to label them, and equally meaningless.

Anders ate lunch in much the same fashion as he did while confined in a cage, though this time he was unobserved by anyone aside from Mira. As the sun blazed through Minrathous and cast stark shadows over the stone floor, Mira's scar made more hideous by the harsh light yet leaving her no less achingly adorable, it scorched the upper bedroom to a sweltering, prickly heat. The word ice did not bring to mind punishment at all now, but he almost saw it as a welcomed relief.

"I'm bored," he lamented, and Mira smiled wistfully from just outside his alcove. "I suppose you think being bored is better than whatever passes for excitement for slaves around here."

Mira shook her head; he wished he understood sign language, though he had a sneaking suspicion that she only mimed the most basic actions and left the rest unsaid. A slave had no need to communicate beyond a basic sign that she understood and would obey, and she followed orders well enough.

Was she born mute? A part of him dreaded the truth; perhaps she had a master who did not want a slave who was capable of speech and took away the part of her that knew how to speak. Or maybe the accident that marred her delicate countenance was traumatizing enough to cause amnesia. Either way it probably had something to do with magic.

He never asked Fenris how badly Danarius had treated him, and perhaps ignorance was his shield; it saved him from having to question his own beliefs, his iron-clad conviction that mages should be free.

He had fought for the cause so long and given too much of himself to it. Any doubt was a distraction he could ill afford.

Those were Justice's words, not his. Anders shook himself out of the sudden, creeping chill.

It was completely superficial on his part that he never noted it while they both followed Hawke, but the scarring that Fenris was subjected to was no different from the burn that marred nearly half of Mira's face. They were unwanted modifications to their bodies, whether it was beautiful, useful, or simply an aberration on who they were that marked them with hatred and fear. If Fenris' scarring had been ugly, Anders might have listened, and perhaps his ideals shaken.

Blowing up the Tevinter assembly certainly sounded like a great idea right about now. He grinned at the thought, and Mira, thinking that he was still communicating wit her and not to the completely silent passenger in his head, grinned back.

A silent companion was no deterrent for Anders; he had spent a year talking to the walls, and sometimes to a cat. It kept him sane, though sometimes he wondered if he was fit to judge his own sanity.

"So about the ice you were sent for -" he began.

Mira pointed to herself, then moved her finger to the front of her mouth. _I'm not allowed to tell you._

"Does it hurt?" Anders asked anyway.

She shook her head no. Then she seemed unsure and shrugged instead.

"You don't have firsthand experience with ... whatever he's planning, I take it."

She let out a nervous giggle. He had no idea what she meant, but his trepidation lightened somewhat. Time passed as he continued to talk to her, and he told her of trivial things; not about escape or his life before, in case the walls had ears.

Suddenly it was time. There were no real signals, save for perhaps the way sunlight slanted through the room that warned of afternoon passing. She prepared him with her hands until he was hard and aching, which took no time at all, and after checking his knots to make sure they were tight enough that he could not shake them, and not so tight to cut off his circulation, she led him through the villa.

The hallways were not as empty as they were the day before. Slaves passed them, but they barely paid attention to him or the state of his arousal jutting out between his legs.

A nude man on a leash was apparently a common sight around here.

Mira led him through the kitchens, where the stairs took them into the cellars. Neither of them wore shoes, and the floor here was kept free of debris or anything that could cut their feet. Saul's household slaves kept a meticulously clean home.

Finally they moved through the pantry into the wine cellars, and here it was noticeably cooler than the rest of the mansion. Hawke had one back in Kirkwall, the walls lined with ice in the hottest months of the summer, and a drain in the floor, covered by a grate, took the ice melt as the months went by. Here, there was a grate as well, but it was much larger, nearly six feet wide, probably because it was so warm here that it needed more room for drainage.

It was to this grate he was led. The bars were about three inches apart and the metal bars rounded and sanded down; and if once it only served one purpose, it had since been modified for comfort, with no rough edges that could cut into skin. Mira had a few turns of rope wrapped around her waist; removing them, she tied him down kneeling with his knees as wide apart as he could push them, on top of the grate.

Then with a tug on his leash, she urged him to lean forward until his collarbone touched cold metal. Then with a few quick turns of leather strap over metal, she bound him tightly to the grate.

It was awkward and uncomfortable, his cheek pressing into a cold iron bar; he tried not to think of the spectacle he made with his arse in the air.

At least there was no one here except Mira to witness it, and she did not judge or laugh, or even take pity on his predicament. She had her orders and she followed them. Whatever indignities he thought he suffered, she did not consider them as such.

A slave had no dignity at all, and if he did not have it, he could not lose it. Anders thought it a most strange state of mind for her to accept such a thing, but he could understand it a little if it was all she ever knew.

His position left him vulnerable and completely immobile; and if he didn't know Saul had other plans than to sate him, Anders would have thought he was tied down this way, exposed with his entrance easily accessible, to be taken.

"Mira," _Saul_. Anders' body tensed at the sound of his voice, half a day of conditioning associating it with pain. "Leave us."

Anders could not see her but he imagined that she shot him worried glances as she had the evening before. His knots were checked, Saul testing how much he could move, and finding that Anders could not move at all save wriggling his toes, crouched beside him. He looked down at Anders, tilting his head so the view of his face was not sideways.

"Care to swear at me again?" The bastard was smiling.

"Fuck off," Anders figured that if he was going to be punished regardless, why not? In for a copper, in for a sovereign.

A hand wound into his hair and his head was lifted briefly, and Saul pushed a wide wooden rod between his teeth. It was quickly and tightly knotted behind his head, holding the crude gag in place.

"You are so predictable," he laughed. Anders cursed in his head, with all the swear words he knew in every language, calling him in anything from comparisons to filthy animals to cheating husbands who needed their cocks chopped off.

Another part of his brain cussed at himself for not keeping his mouth shut for once.

Saul seemed to sigh, and the hand that came down to stroke Anders' hair was gentle. It was the second time Anders experienced it, Saul giving him a gesture of comfort, but it was rather incongruous with his actions and all the other things he was putting Anders through.

"You're a slave. If you accept that fact, life will be easier. This isn't personal. Try to remember that," Saul stroked his cheek with a thumb, pausing to sweep a lock of hair out of his eyes. "I'm just a man who prepares new slaves. You'll be much happier if you yield."

Anders snorted, the only sign of derision he could show with his mouth gagged, his hands tied behind his back, and strapped to a metal drain.

"Stubborn boy," Saul patted his cheek, and Anders got that feeling again, the same he had the night before, that he was being viewed with affection.

Anders shook it off. Saul wasn't capable of affection. He was a cold hearted bastard who tortured slaves, and Anders was only one in a string of poor souls he was tasked with breaking down, to be sold again into less capable hands.

A finger stroked down over his arms and into the cleft of his arse and Anders forgot to breathe.

It was hot compared to his skin, which had been exposed to the cool air of the cellars for a while now. Saul's hands stroked over the sensitive back of his thighs, fingers brushing all the in-between places where buttocks and thighs met, where his sac joined his body. A hand wrapping around his cock made him groan aloud.

Opened like this, with so much want built up over an entire day, he would have begged; the gag was a mercy. Though he begged in spite of it with small twitches to the muscles in his cock as it jumped in Saul's hand. Anders bit down on the wooden gag and tried not to let the guttural sounds in his throat betray him.

"Relax," Saul said casually, and as those fingers returned to his entrance, slick with oil and drawing circles around the sensitive pucker of skin, Anders cried out softly as they teased him to a frenzy. His legs could not collapse under him; they were held, and it was the first time he thought of his bonds as his support.

Throughout the night he watched Saul, and he deduced that the view of Saul sleeping in the nude was the reason why Anders was tied where he was. Saul was attractive by any standard.

And now that Saul was touching him, all Anders could think of was his cock, thick and long and perfect in morning sunlight. If Saul chose to take him now Anders would never have to admit that he wanted it; the responsibility would have transferred to Saul, and the little craving Anders had could remain private.

But when the fingers pushed and pressed him to open beneath them, his body yielded, and as they slipped inside, he writhed what little he could and moaned behind the gag. Instinctive need clenched around the digits rhythmically, drawing them in with what felt like hope, just a bit more and they would touch him there against where the bead nudged at him and pressured him from the outside all night.

Even with the gag in his mouth he could not stop the moans, low and dark from his throat. The first knuckles crooked downwards, seeking a bump of nerves far too easy to reach from this angle. Then finally they drew a line exactly where he needed them, and though his cock was ignored, the touch sent stars behind his eyelids all the same, and he forgot momentarily where he was.

His world was there, where those fingers rubbed him in agonizingly gentle, slow circles. It was too light to bring him release, and he pictured Hawke behind him, touching him, soon to pound into him as Anders screamed into the pillows.

A hand palmed him without warning, wrapping around his erection with one slow, gritty stroke, and he was so close his balls drew up towards his body ready to spasm and let go. All the pressure wound up tight by every minute he was in those ropes gnawed at him, aching for that release that seemed just within sight.

Abruptly, right before he crested over the edge, all the sensations including that feeling of imminent release was wrenched from him.

Mira was wrong. It hurt. He screamed. Even behind a gag it was too loud, most of the sound reverberating around his skull before it turned to panicked gasps.

The pain came from the speed with which his cock went from purple and hard to flaccid within seconds; blood leaving the area much too quickly as though they feared the bowl of ice pressed against his balls.

It was only a shallow, innocent bowl of ice chips. Anders felt the width of it along his abdomen, where the lip of the bowl touched him. Gritting his teeth, he waited for the pain to pass, and within minutes it was replaced by a numbness that was wholly alien.

Anders was well acquainted with the concept of using ice to numb and sooth swelling. In the clinic he had used it on infections, sprains, black eyes, where magical healing took care of the wound but the body fought the site as if it was still injured. An erection was technically a kind of swelling, but he was used to curing it by other means.

The ice was melting, and Saul quickly dumped out the water and scooped up more ice chips from a bucket out of Anders' view. The scraping sound as the metal bowl chopped roughly into the ice was to him a torturer's blade being sharpened.

He shivered, attributing the involuntary shuddering to the cold, and not to the sound of cracking ice.

Then it was back and it felt even colder than before, but Anders had no more swelling down there to lessen. It wasn't painful at all, numb and annoying perhaps, but not the kind of pain he would associate with something supposedly worse than pain. Better yet, the urgent need for release seemed to have gone away entirely.

Celibacy, he could handle, and had for years. Anders closed his eyes, hoping perhaps that Saul was done with him. He had been iced, and he suffered the pain of it. Was that not enough?

As the pain faded and he became accustomed to the numbness, Anders realized that the fingers were still inside of him, rubbing the same gentle circles that they had before. His attention shifted to them, his cock no longer interested, that desire to penetrate fading away to a dull hum, a vague suggestion easily ignored.

The bowl was removed; he felt a something moving through his cock, and with much embarrassment he had a desperate fear that he was pissing himself. But there was no pressure in his bladder, not while they walked through the villa and not while he was being strapped down. Mira had mimed for him to empty himself before leaving the master bedroom.

Ice cold fingers wrapped around his cock and squeezed, and the motion was eerily recognizable to Anders, who spent his first twelve years on a farmstead. With the ice numbing him, the touch was barely felt but for the pressure, a slow tug, pull, and release, coupled with two fingers that circled inside. A slow steady stream of sticky fluid left his body, dripping between the bars below him and into the drain.

He was spurting at an excruciatingly slow pace, each drop of cum milked from him with expert hands without the accompanying spasms that signaled a release. Anders groaned at the total loss of control over a single body function that he always thought he had complete dominion over; his legs pushed and kicked at the restraints, his voice became nothing but beastly snarls behind his gag.

Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes and he pleaded with choked sobs, and the hands did not stop.

Rope cut into his legs, rough fibers chafing his skin and burning him, but the pain was honest and simple and nothing compared to the hands that played him for a puppet. He fought until all his strength was gone, even the panic that seized him and made him thrash ran out of steam, the pointlessness of fighting at all settling in heavily as a languor in his limbs.

Still the hands holding him kept up their movements. They would not stop until he was completely empty. Each time he felt sensations return and blood rushing into the area to flood through his cock, the bowl of ice returned to reduce him to nothing.

 _Stop. Please._ Anders said through the gag, past pride and what little dignity he had left. He would never talk back again, he would promise to be good, he would - anything but this.

Warmth and feeling eventually returned, and this time Saul did not numb him with more ice, but encouraged it with salve and the smooth slide of his grip. It ran up the vein and grasped the head of his cock, thumbing over the slit and right over the sensitive glans. With firm turns of his palm over the top and those fingers still teasing inside him, Anders' need to come returned all at once, and he noticed then that it hadn't abated at all, his cock as hard as it was before the icing began.

The hands stroked him gently, and he was so close that he thought another stroke would finish him. Then that stroke passed, he felt lightheaded and on edge, but he did not come, and then another, and still he held on. Finally the realization hit that he could not climax even if he tugged himself raw. There wasn't enough pressure inside him to set off the chain reaction of an orgasm, but the need for it was still there, throbbing for attention.

And when his body finally replenished that spring, Saul would simply ice him again. He would be forever kept on the edge, the need consuming his thoughts and his body willing to debase him to chase that elusive release just out of reach.

The finality of slavery, that nothing was his any more, caught up to him.

His tears flowed into the drain beneath him, unmourned and forgotten much like himself. He was in a cellar in the middle of Tevinter, with a borrowed name so old he could barely remember the true one. He owned nothing, not his body, not the feelings he carried, the sensations on him and inside of him.

All of him had been sold; not his servitude as he had thought, not his hand and mouth and arse so he could please. He had always assumed that being a slave was no worse than being a manservant without pay, but it was so much more than that.

Anders did not resist when he was untied from the grating, picked up so that he sat on his master's lap. Despair craved the gentle touches though they only served to draw out his crying fit, lengthening it until the source of his cries dried up as well, and he had no tears to go with his reddened eyes.

The arms around him tightened, and he was aware that they were the same responsible for his suffering, but he did not care; Saul's was the only comfort he would ever be allowed, and Anders was always one to clutch at anything at all to help him survive.

He needed Saul's comforting warmth, and as those arms held him and kisses were pressed to the top of his head, he felt a layer of resistance crumble away.

It was only the second day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little author note that I'll be away for a bit because _moving_ is a time consuming chore. Hopefully they'll hook up my internet by the end of the first week and I'll be back in the swing of it with more drafts to edit.
> 
> See ya'll later!


	8. Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long, long wait. I'm back!

Alone in Minrathous, not able to even count Mira as a friend, Anders found boredom to be the worst enemy of them all.

He had battled boredom years ago, in a tiny cell in the bowels of Kinloch Hold where the other side of the stone wall was probably water and naught else. There he paced, conversed with himself and the tower mouser, railing at the templar who stood guard outside his cell.

If the templar was green enough to be riled, sometimes he talked back. It was entertainment, of a sort. Anders still had a slew of creative insults based entirely on blasphemy in his arsenal; templars really couldn't stand their religion made fun of.

Saul treated him with boundless patience, and though he put up some sort of token gesture of punishment whenever Anders cussed at him or called him names, he never did it out of anger. Yelling at Saul made Anders feel like a petulent child or a mad dog; whenever he took out his anger in some other way such as kicking over a vase or making a mess of his meals, Mira was the one who had to clean it up.

If Saul gave him something - a twitch to the eyebrow, a disapproving pursing of the lip, anything remotely resembling a frown - and acted like a real human being with emotions he could manipulate, Anders would have kept resisting.

The difference between templars and slave trainers, Anders decided, was in their level of delusion. Templars at least had some sort of crazed, misguided faith that they were doing the Maker's work, and so when Anders insulted them they were always to a one offended. Saul on the other hand was unapologetic of his obvious immorality. After all, if he was a person who bought and sold sentient beings, any name that Anders could think up to call him would be appropriate and probably complimentary in comparison to reality.

Saul was honest with his sins, and seemed at peace with them. If there was anyone who slept better at night, Anders had never met him.

Time passed, one day at a time; there were things he could come to predict and things he could not, but compared to the life he led in the wardens or Kirkwall, it was surprisingly peaceful.

Mira was always gentle with Anders, but she never shirked her duty. Every morning she took him out of his ropes and took care of his cleasing rituals, every night she bound him to the wall, and he spent his afternoons either alone in his alcove or with Saul in the wine cellars.

The second time after the first he ran.

As they were moving through the villa through the same passageways, a dreadful chill enveloped his limbs, as though he was already touched by a bowl of ice. Without a plan to guide the pumping of his legs, armed only with a need to get away from the very word _ice,_ he yanked on his leash and ran for what he thought was the front door.

They had passed the inner garden only minutes before, a grove of flowering plants and trees overhanging with heavy, strange teardrop shaped fruit, the air filled with the dulcet tones of birds and rushing water. If what he read of Tevinter architecture was correct, then the front door of a Tevinter villa faced the fountain of the atrium.

Guards appeared out of nowhere and caught him seconds after his leather lead left Mira's hand. Two men with bows strapped to their backs and daggers at their hips tackled him to the floor within six strides.

Templars were invariably noisy, and even compared to the hunters who wore half-plate Anders was always faster, able to jump out of windows and scale walls where the clumsy templars had to march around. Even before Justice gave him the ability to sense danger and lyrium with his eyes closed, Anders could pick out the clanging of their boots in forty paces.

It would be just his luck that Saul was smart enough to employ rogues.

Hysteria once awoken could not be laid to rest within the hour, and Anders held on to his panicked tension that whole afternoon. No matter how gentle Saul was, it was still much more painful than the first time he was brought down here.

As he curled up tired and spent in Saul's arms later, his struggles only serving to make his exhaustion more marked, Anders wondered why he was not punished for his escape attempt. He remembered Orana's fearful attitude, always waiting for Hawke to turn on her and punishing her for breaking a plate three months back. She told him once that slaves were punished for everything, and sometimes for no reason at all.

"Do you know what happens to an unescorted slave in Minrathous? Especially one that has a collar like yours?" Saul looked down with mild disappointment, and Anders was only able to spot it because he had been watching him. "If you're caught by a friend, you'll be brought back after he and perhaps his friends have some fun with you. Otherwise, I'll never see you again, except maybe in pieces."

"Do you have a lot of friends?" Anders hadn't learned to tack master on to everything yet, after a perfunctory dose of pain, he tried once more. "Do you have a lot of friends, master?"

"I have a lot of acquintances and sycophants," Saul met his eyes meaningfully. "Don't try to run away again."

Anders made a note to himself to find some clothes that covered the collar before he tried again. It was rather unfortunate that everything Saul owned were jeweled tunics with scooping, open low collars that showed a large expanse of dusky chest, and loose fitting trousers that hugged his figure at every turn.

This constant heigtened state of his arousal was very distracting. Anders tried to think of himself wearing a magister's robe instead of Saul's naked chest right in front of him, broad, muscular, and faintly glistening by flickering torch light.

Understanding flitted through the periphery of his thoughts, a hint of something that could unravel the mystery that was Saul, but when he tried to chase that thought it eluded him and was gone. He would not think of it until months later when Saul told him outright.

By the end of the first week, Anders learned to hold his tongue. In terms of dealing out punishment, Anders thought Saul most resembled the Tranquil; if the same had been given the blood stone linked to Anders and told to impose pain whenever certain words were spoken, the effect would have been exactly the same. Whenever Anders spoke out of turn or failed to call him master, the pain came so swift and without maliciousness that Anders felt as though he was the one causing the pain himself.

He had a strange feeling that Saul relished his resistance. It wasn't that Anders felt himself laughed at for his feeble attempts, but Saul took advantage of every single one of his acts of defiance.

Soon after Anders learned basic slave etiquette - not speaking out of turn and tacking master on to everything he said - Saul went away on business for two days. When he came back, Anders fought more than usual, snarling and spitting on top of his cursing, perhaps out of boredom or spite, even while he feared that he was only giving the man more sport.

"If you're going to miss me this much, I can keep you with me all the time." Saul wiped Anders' saliva off his cheek with a white napkin, and stared at him thoughtfully. "I can always use a footstool while I work."

Anders balked, snapping his next words up right then and there, even the ones that indicated in quite absolute terms that he very much did not want to be with Saul all the time. It was apparently a busy day for his master, things in the villa to do and magisters to meet and slaves to sell, so Anders was only given a cursory punishment of pain before he was left alone for the day again.

After his bath the next day, Mira wrapped him in a rope harness as usual, but this time she used a black rope woven with gold thread, and expanded the lines out to his arms and legs, creating a network of glittering diamond shapes that she somehow made elegant. Then she linked his elbows and knees with more rope so that he would be forced to crawl.

She braided his hair and piled the braids on top of his head and secured a black and gold veil to the braids with little golden pins. A mesh sewn into the fabric allowed him to see in front of him, but not from side to side, making the veil as good as blinders on a horse.

"He never says anything he doesn't mean, does he?" Anders stared at the leash Mira had in her hand; even that practical brown leather affair was being swapped out for a jewel studded one with a gold clasp.

Mira shook her head, but her smile was reproving, as well. It was the universal expression of _you should have known better,_ and it was one she had to use with Anders often.

"Other people threaten before they do things," Anders tried to think up examples, but ones that he thought Mira would understand were far and few between. "You know, 'I'll give you a count to ten before I come drag you out,' or in this case, 'if you do that again I'll use you for a footstool.'"

Of course Mira wouldn't understand. Judging by the scar marring half her face, magisters were not one to give second chances. But at his words Mira giggled, her guard down around Anders always, then she tipped her head to the side to examine him. She pointed at the veil, made her eyes go wide as if surprised, and smiled.

"You think I look surprisingly pretty in a veil," Anders said, dryly. "Why, thank you, Mira. Wonderful job with the knots. I guess I won't be expected to walk."

She shook her head and mimicked a cat walking with paws, then she opened her mouth wide in a snarl and pretended to roar, but she made no sound.

"Is that what he said? Snarling animals get treated like one?"

"That is exactly what I said," Saul appeared from behind the screen, and as he took in the overly decorated mess that Anders thought he must have been, he smiled with approval with one eyebrow tilted just so, and Anders knew at a glance that he was humouring her. "Good job, Mira. You may go."

Anders hadn't yet seen Saul reprimand her for anything. She was fearful of Saul anyway, and at his appearance bowed low and presented the leash above her head, not making eye contact once in all the times Anders saw them in the same room together.

There were several objects in his hands; one of them turned out, predictably, to be a gag made of leather and rope.

"I can't have you barking at my guests. Make no mistake," Saul pushed the soft leather bit between Anders' teeth and knotted the rope behind his head, taking the ends, and tied the leash to the ends of the rope instead of his collar. "There is no escape even outside my villa. There are two guards you can't even see dedicated to your safety, and I always have an eye on you, no matter how busy I may seem."

That was a familiar threat, the words as old as the chantry. Templars had claimed to guard Anders for his protection, but he had always known that it was all a cover story, even when he was young and suppsedly impressionable.

There was an intensity that accompanied his every gesture that made Anders trust him in spite of his actions; he could count on Saul to let him know exactly what to expect, even while he dreaded in anticipation. As Saul parted his veil and gently kissed his lower lip around the gag, the threat felt truly like a promise of protection.

Those lips moved down his chin and over the side of his neck, and suddenly Anders forgot how to breathe. Saul had soft hands, clever and quick, moving down Anders' chest to brush thumbs over his nipples, turning them into hard peaks. He felt a sudden pinch of almost pain as a pair of nipple clamps were snapped into place, Saul murmuring soothing words into his neck. A gold chain connecting them added enough weight to make them difficult to ignore, diverting his attention with their constant presence.

Anders whimpered in protest, the sound muffled and low, distracted partially by hands that had travelled lower still, one now grasping his erection, always ready but never sated. The low sound of his fussing turned into loud moans as oiled fingers slipped inside of him, and he was so responsive all the time now that it was a war with his body to not rock against them.

His mind fought for the resistence he held dear; the desires that had been planted in him, for weeks on end, wanted the touch bestowed on him.

Abruptly the fingers were gone and something bigger and infinitely harder was pushing at his entrance, a hand stroking his back reminding him to breathe and relax, until it slipped inside and his body closed around the base of the foreign object.

Soft fur touched the back of his thighs all the way down to the hollows of his knees, and the plug - metal or wood, he couldn't tell, only that it was small enough to move around with - was impossible to expel on his own, sporting a tail of golden red hair to matched that on his head.

From the slight pull on his scalp from the pins that held the veil in place, the scratch of rope on his skin, light pinching on his nipples, to the constant nudging of the nerves inside him from the rounded end of the plug, he was touched inside and out everywhere except his cock. Anders took one experiemental crawl forward and felt a tug all over that made him shiver.

His skin seemed to burn with pinpoints of heat where it was exposed to the air, though he hadn't been covered in a scrap of clothing since he arrived in Tevinter.

"This is punishment for spitting at me. It will last only a week. If you don't behave - and you know exactly what I mean, you will get one extra day of this for each new transgression." With the end of the leash wrapped around his hand, Saul pulled on it so Anders had to look up at him. "Of course, I run the risk of you growing fond of the attention and disobeying on purpose just to win a few extra days. But you are too defiant for that, are you not?"

The rope dug into the edges of his mouth when it was pulled, and he quickly scurried on his hands and knees after Saul. Each movement sent new sparks behind his eyelids, forcing him to blindly follow. Distantly he was aware of the moaning he let loose, that at any time he thought he might collapse, that Saul moved much too fast and he could not possibly keep up.

Saul appeared to be taking the long way out, or at least the circuitous way around the villa; there were too many turns, each of them requiring a shift of his hips that jostled the plug inside his arse, the angle barely grazing that spot and it was a fight not to want it, to chase after it, to crave that turn before it came. He was dizzy; his breath came short as though he just climbed up Sundermont at a dead run, and even the gag and the little pain that the rope gave became another set of stimulation, one that Saul had direct control over.

He had not noticed when they stopped, but they must have, for now he was resting on the ground in the atrium with his legs spread as far as his restraints allowed him. When his chin was lifted, so too it seemed his sense of judgement, his gaze drawn inexorably towards Saul's eyes, the brightness of them as dazzling as staring up into an overcast sky.

"You did very well," he dipped to one side and purred into Anders' ear, and that tone of approval should have felt condescending, but he only felt a rush of warmth at the words, teasing breath that came with it tickling the shell of his ear.

Such confidence. Saul never had any doubt that Anders would follow without complaint, that his obedience need never be questioned. And now that he had followed so far, would he not only act like an animal, but a wild beast, to snarl and thrash at his bonds in front of guests?

Social protocals were ingrained, habitual things. Anders remembered the first time he attended the chant in the tower's chantry, and how his habits seemed so different from the other apprentices, each of them knew when to get up and bow, when to recite certain passages of the chant, when to receive benediction from the Revered Mother. When he had stood up while everyone else remained seated once, he felt such a fool that he nearly ran out of the service right then, if not for the enchanter that held his gaze and smiled from the back row as he turned.

Eventually Anders learned the steps the same as everyone else. However fun that might have been and he indulged in idle fantasies of noncompliance, he never once considered reading out the wrong line on purpose or to stand up again when he wasn't supposed to.

Here it was always his first day in the tower; Saul knew all the rules, and Anders watched his every move. Somewhere between his intention, which was to maximize his chances of survival and watch for an opening, and the end result, which was falling slowly and unerringly into those mesmerizing gray eyes, Anders was left feeling lost and unanchored, with Saul as his safe harbour.

Saul's guest arrived; a mage, by the cut of his robes, fashion not having moved forward at all for the magisters since Anders wore them in the Ferelden circle. Anders picked up pieces of information here and there, but he heard nothing that narrowed down his relative location and any news from the outside. If Hawke was in Tevinter, he was sure to be making a huge splash in high society; it was what Hawke did. Sneaking around wasn't his strong point.

Hawke once boasted that he made his entrance into the city of Kirkwall by throwing fireballs around in the Gallows courtyard. Anders believed it; Carver had sighed and shook his head when his brother recounted the story, rolling his eyes and added that Garrett also wore their father's red coat and the golden staff with the carving of a naked woman on top while using magic to fight the city gangs for years.

It was never his intention to rub his magic in templars' faces; it just never occurred to him that he had to hide in a city where every gang employed their own apostate.

The conversation before him inevitably gravitated to the bejewelled, glittery slave sitting on his heels by Saul's feet.

Anders stared out from behind the mesh of his veil. There was one rule he could break here, his eyes obscured behind the fabric. The magister, if that was what he was, not just a circle mage or an apprentice, looked to be around the same age as Saul, but had apparently spent his entire life in the shade. Even now he sat carefully under a shade tree, leaning awkwardly to one side in his chair as though the sun would burn him.

"I heard of a templar killer you've taken in, but he certainly doesn't look very dangerous," said the pale mage, reaching out to touch Anders' veil.

Anders pictured that hand to have felt slimy, even as it crept towards him. Before he had a chance to flinch, Saul grabbed his wrist and placed it back on the table before them.

"You know my rules," Saul said.

"Yes, you and your rules and contracts. Personally, I think you're just creating mystery and interest so you can drive up the price," The mage lifted a perfect and overly plucked thin eyebrow. He seemed to pause to think for a moment, "will you sell him to me for two hundred?"

"And ruin my reputation when he kills you within the week? No," Saul laughed.

"He looks obedient enough," the mage said, skeptically.

"You look devout enough when you're attending the chant."

"Twenty just for the day?"

"Should have known better than to ask. Again, no. I don't rent out wild beasts," Saul met Anders' eyes, seeming to know that he was staring right back at him even while the veil obscured him. "Because not everyone can handle one. Maybe if he's been really bad, I'll consider it. To someone I don't like at all."

"No such luck for me, then?"

Saul smirked, but not unkindly, "you'll be at the top of my list."

It was something Anders hadn't considered, that he could be passed from hand to hand the same as any owned object.

As much as he hated being owned in any way, being owned by Saul so far had been tolerable, and when his mind was occupied this way he was free from the torment of his past. Were magisters as bad as Fenris had made them out to be, he would much rather stay with a master he knew who had no magic.

For as much as Saul asked for absolute obedience, he had not used blood magic, or at least not the kind that snaked inside his mind and wrenched control. He was not a mage, and therefore not a bloodmage.

_Your only choice is to obey, and if you don't, I will make that choice for you,_ Saul had said so the day they met. But as long as he did not use blood magic to control Anders, the choice was always Anders'. If he was sold to a magister who used blood magic to control him, then he wouldn't even have the choice to dream of freedom.

In the heat of midday, Anders shivered. He felt a gentle tugging upwards on his leash, and he turned his gaze up to Saul.

"Cold?" Saul met him from above, but his expression was a mask. _Afraid? You very well should be._ He tugged on the leash again; Anders followed, crawling the two feet between them, Saul placing a gentle hand on Anders' head to pull him close against the side of his knee.

"I don't see how he can be cold. It's blistering hot," the magister fanned himself with a hand ineffectually, eyeing their closeness with a measure of suspicion. "You're too soft on your slaves, Saul."

"Hmm. Perhaps you're right," Saul said.

Anders could hear that he did not agree at all. Though he also could not see how leashing, gagging, and bounding a slave was being soft.

"Ropes dipped in magebane and orichalcum in his food is what he needs," the mage eyed him, cold and snake-like. Anders half expected a forked tongue to emerge the next time he hissed. "Pump him full of lyrium for a week and he'll do anything for dust - and it'll still be cheaper than what you do. And if you're so concerned about that pretty smooth skin of his, use a surrogate for whipping."

An image rose in Anders' mind of Mira tied to a post and whipped, blood running down her back. The scene was quiet but for the sound of a whip cutting through the air, for she could not even scream, her mouth and her eyes open in wide terror.

Eight years ago, he would have run, damn anyone else and their suffering. He had done so before, leaving other mages who helped him escape to be punished in his stead, but he was a different person now.

Anders tried to calm his breathing, his back rising and falling with each deep breath, his distress visible to the eyes on him. Without meaning to, he leaned against Saul for support, tucking his shoulder behind Saul's knee, who in turn placed a reassuring, possessive hand on his shoulder, thumb stroking the nape of his neck.

This gesture of comfort that Anders himself would have applied to a cat should have felt patronizing. But now, while the creepy man across from Saul studied his perfectly manicured fingernails while discussing his idea of proper treatments of slaves, Saul's presence felt solid and calming, a lifeline.

"Now you're just scaring him," Saul said.

"The truth can be rather disconcerting, I admit. You instill a false set of expectations. I'm just remedying them."

"You can't buy loyalty with fear, Darin. At best, you borrow it. One day they will rise up against you. All save the ones I sold, of course."

"Of course," Darin repeated, rolling his eyes. "No one can afford to fill their house with your slaves; your rates are ridiculous."

Saul's hand had moved up under the veil to rub at an ear, and Anders tried hard not to think about the heat that rose in him. It felt wonderful and he resisted the urge to rub his face up against Saul's knee. The hand eventually moved to under his chin to tip his face up.

"Can even you put a price on love?" The words were for Darin, but he was looking at Anders while he said it. As his body positively purred at the attention, his mind firmly refused that he could ever come to love Saul.

There was silence for a time, the mage who had been looking creepy all this time suddenly seemed forlorn and sad. Saul had resumed his petting, and Anders' skin was already warm, now where he was touched prickled and burned, Saul's fingers leaving ghost trails behind.

"You do. Two hundred and fifty is what your Florian cost me, and more," if a voice could drip bitterness in venom then his jaw would have been rotted away.

"He was a love slave. He loved you as long as he was a slave. What did you expect?"

"Some measure of gratitude for treating him well? While he was with me I gave him everything he ever asked for," Darin tucked a lock of jet black hair behind a pale, half-pointed ear. "Clothes, jewels, lessons - and now he pretends to be out when I come to call."

"Maybe he is out. You're not his only suitor. He is free to choose with whom he associates."

"Can you talk to him? Convince him to see me once in a while?" Darin pleaded, even stooped to moving himself closer to the sun to show his sincerity. "Tell him I'll settle for dinner and a night at the theatre."

Saul huffed softly with amusement, "I'll see what I can do."

Anders tried his best to understand. Who was this Florian then, that he could bring a seemingly evil magister like Darin to his knees? How was he free now, living in Tevinter in his own home, called on by suitors? And why would he still listen to Saul if he had won his freedom?

Knowing more about Saul's business did not help much in his escape plans; Anders had too little knowledge and therefore no context with which to work out even how Saul ran his trade.

The morning wore on with Saul receiving visitors in his atrium and taking orders until noon. From this Anders gleaned that he was more of a matchmaker than a broker. His clients all wanted something specific in a slave, and they came in with a list of requirements for him to fulfill. When a magister's wants matched what Anders was - _a household healer would be wonderful, no one wants to study it in the Circle nowadays_ \- he felt his stomach drop away.

Then the conversation invariably moved on, Saul writing everything down himself as though he had no scribe with which to do so, and there wasn't a mage right at his feet who matched the requirements. He felt a secret little tug, a tightening of his leash as Saul rolled it around a finger, the sensation of the rope touching the corners of his mouth strangely reassuring.

He tried to predict what the next hour would bring, but he had no reference point with which to start. Even life in Kirkwall was predictable; a walk at night was always interrupted by thugs, a quiet trail on the Wounded Coast contained Tal-Vashoth and blood mages. Here, he had nothing to go on save what Saul chose to show him.

So far, not one single magister thought it was strange that Saul had a naked and bound slave on a leash. It was disturbing that this was normal - he had to measure what was done to him by a different standard, a new set of expectations. And if Darin wasn't exaggerating about how he would train a slave himself, what he was going through with Saul was mild by comparison to the _norm_.

At noon, Saul dismissed the last of the morning's visitors, and Mira came by with food, setting Anders' in front of him on a dish, taking off his gag, parting his veil and pinning it back to the sides of his head so it would not fall into his food.

Anders was used to lapping his food and drink by now, but never with Saul present. He chewed on his lower lip and stared at the bowl; it was a simple fare of bread and olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt, small bits of diced fruit sat to the side, bite-sized and easy to eat without his hands. Glancing out the corner of his eyes, he saw Saul studying him and decided suddenly that he was not hungry after all.

"Your next meal is at sunset and you get it the same way," Saul said, looking down coldly. "Mira is not going to sneak food to you on your off hours. So if you're starving for the benefit of my not having to see you eat, don't."

"I'm not hungry," his lips twitched, his mind wanting to fight the conditioning but the word came without thought, "master."

"This is what's going to happen," Saul tipped Anders' chin up and stared straight into his eyes. "Every single one of your meals will be served this way, and you will eat with me. If you go a whole day without eating I will have a slave funnel grounded food down your throat. Now, eat."

Anders stared at his food; Saul had moved to crouch next to him, and his presence was paralyzing. There was no real reason to resist here, no chance to get away and no reprieve from the constant scrutiny while he trailed Saul, but there were some things he wanted to keep to himself, and the little privacy he was able to snatch in captivity quickly fled with this new role of his servitude.

Resistance came naturally and easily, while obedience felt like a badge of shame, each concession stripping away his humanity by degrees. Anders saw food and he hadn't yet eaten today, and he should have been famished, but his stomach tied itself into a knot.

Submitting was so much easier when he was helpless and held down, the choice taken away by force. Logically he knew that eating here would be a less humiliating choice than having food forced down his throat, but he couldn't bring himself down that extra few inches, to close his eyes and pretend Saul wasn't here.

He felt a small, sharp pinch of pain on his chest; Saul had slipped a finger between his chest and the chain connecting his nipple clamps, and slowly pulled it down towards the ground. With a small sigh of relief, Anders followed them, letting that pain be the reason he grovelled, putting his mouth close to a small morsel of bread and oil. His tongue darted out and curled it into his mouth, still warm from the oven where it was baked, a small crunch of sea salt and the fresh fragrance of olive oil flooding his tastebuds.

It was simple, rustic food, but everything felt more intense when he was with Saul, as though there could be nothing else more important than eating, or crawling along the ground, or to follow where that leash led. Saul's attention was overwhelming.

The hand that held him down had let go, and it was now a heated presence on his lower back, pushing down gently, encouraging Anders to arch his back. In time he might learn that Saul had made the simple act of eating into a sensual experience, a performance that he expected to be put on at every meal, never diminishing in importance as long as someone was watching him while he ate.

"That was lovely," Saul's low, gruff voice brought Anders back to the present as he swallowed the last bit of fruit from his bowl. "Everything you are made to do is beautiful. Remember that."

Anders struggled to understand the feeling of satisfaction, the heat that flooded his chest as he heard those words. It was approval, an acceptance of everything he was. Some people chased that feeling their whole lives, and Saul just handed it to him in a food bowl.

"You'll be needing your strength," Saul smiled, his eyes a controlled mask. "I'm having a litter prepared for you; we're going out."


	9. Defiance

What Anders mistook as the entrance to the villa turned out to be the open archway to an extensive garden, which was probably visible from Saul's balcony. Greenery surrounded the building on all sides; in his alcove, sometimes Anders fancied he could see the faint shadows of trees in the sun, and they probably served to keep the building cool as much as the thick, ancient stone walls.

He had thought it strange that Saul's bedroom was quiet as a tomb, even with the open windows and archways, privacy achieved by nothing more than screens and curtains, heavier canvas tied to the rails just before a rare storm. A wall of trees surrounded the periphery of the property, through which could be seen high, smooth stone like that of a hightown mansion in Kirkwall. Beyond that he could see little from his vantage point near the ground.

Distant towers pierced an open, cerulean blue sky. As he crawled past the trees, slowly this time, Anders saw fruit he recognized from his meals and trees he did not, broad leafed, their fruit bulbous and heavy, softer and sweeter than any peach growing in the south.

The stone beneath his hands were too hot, but he never stopped long enough for them to burn. When his steps faltered and his hands fumbled, Saul pulled him to a stop in the shade for Anders to catch his breath.

Anders opened his eyes just as Saul crouched down in front of him, parting his veil to dab a linen handkerchief along Anders' forehead, mopping up the beads of sweat just above his eyebrows. His vision blurred from the sun; Kirkwall was hot in the summer but this was near unbearable, and going outside was akin to stepping into a sauna, a wall of heat that hit him straight on, air thick with moisture and the scent of sea.

Saul examined his pupils, turning his chin left and right, then seemed to come to a conclusion. He gestured to one of the slaves that accompanied them and asked him to bring the litter here, lest his fragile slave should expire from the heat. While they waited, he continued to wipe at the edges of Anders' hairline with a handkerchief.

Anders felt dizzy trying to focus on Saul, a faint smile that made him seem almost kind playing at the corner of his mouth, as though enjoying caring for his slave.

Four men bearing a litter marched towards them from the far end of the garden, their limbs sun bronzed and lithe. The litter itself was a simple affair three feet wide and five feet long, not counting the handles for the bearers, a rough rectangular bottom made of bamboo sticks held together at its corners by natural twine, with a canopy of white canvas held up by four more sticks to block out the sun.

They set it directly in front of Anders, placing it atop the ground. It puzzled Anders at first; there was no seat, or even any surface to sit on. Where one would expect a chair tied to the sticks with leather straps, there was simply nothing.

Then with a start he realized that he would be tied to the open poles and displayed while they moved through the streets, and that thought both excited and terrified him. His legs backed him away from the litter of their own accord, only stopping when the rope cutting into the corners of his mouth reminded him that he was still very much a captive.

 _I can't do this,_ Anders trembled, cold fear seizing his limbs. _I've faced down templars, darkspawn, and dragons, but I can't do this._ Hawke had joked before, often, that their situation was so horrid that he might any second look down and see that he was not wearing any pants.

Anders wished he could wake up, and this would turn out all to be a bad dream, right up until before he and Justice decided to gather the ingredients for the Tevinter equivalent of gaatlok.

He was dragged forwards again, and this time Anders stumbled forward, not willing to be any closer to that simple but devious contraption than necessary.

"Your hands go on the crossbar in the front, and you'll kneel with your legs apart on the side rails. There's no real difference from what you're doing right now except you wouldn't have to crawl," Saul took all the slack out of the leash, wrapping it round and round his wrist. "But if you don't get on that litter right now, I will make sure you regret it."

Anders had mere seconds to make the decision. Mind steeled against the inevitable backlash, he sat down on his heels in a show of rebellion, both for himself and the slaves that accompanied them.

The two guards appeared from between the trees, picking Anders up and pulling his legs apart between the bars, binding his calves down quickly and artlessly with a multitude of leather straps. Instead of only his hands being bound to the front crossbar as Saul promised, where he could have sat on his heels, his elbows were bound to the sides near his knees, forcing his chest down towards the ground.

The litter was lifted and he was hefted to the height of the bearers' shoulders; along his back he felt the leash being trailed along his spine behind him, where Saul must be. As they lurched slightly forward on every step, the long tail between his legs swayed and brushed at the skin of his sac, the length of soft hair moving back and forth between his thighs.

It was a caress driving him to distraction, and as they turned a sharp corner in the path he moaned, blushing crimson and tucking his head to stifle a moan.

Suddenly they came to a stop.

"I did say I'd make you regret it," Saul said from behind him, and a hand on his arse was all the warning he had before the base of the plug was also pushed inside of him and the ring of muscle closed around it naturally, clenching against that thick bundle of hair. The rounded point of the plug sat right on top of that bundle of nerves, and Saul pulled the tail upwards, pushing the head of the plug down.

For a brief second darkness eclipsed Anders' vision and he saw stars at high noon. His body writhed uncontrollably, fighting with the restraints, his mouth opened wide and he cried out a guttural moan behind his gag. The leash was tugged suddenly, bringing his head up to look forward, back arching with the added tension. And before his could protest, the end of the leash was wrapped around the base of his tail, once, twice, doubled over to bind to itself.

Experimentally, Anders tried to force his head back down, but that only pushed the plug at his walls again, setting off sparks all through his insides, and he could not help squirming in it, blinded by the sudden pleasure that was past the teasing he was used to. Saul had come to stand alongside the litter, and almost absentmindedly, as one would play with a fond object, he wrapped a hand around Anders' jutting cock.

One slide of those fingers brought out an involuntary thrust of his hips, chasing that maddening touch.

There were others here, their retinue of slaves who barely glanced at him. Servants were invisible, slaves doubly so, their presence no more noted than a table or a chair. Anders could not see their expressions but they were probably disinterested, as he had seen while being led around in the villa on a leash.

He was touched so seldom there that he momentarily gave into the sensations, letting his eyes mist over as Saul's thumb trailed a drop of precome from tip to base, his grip gritty and stuttering as the litter moved steadily forward.

A moment of weakness stretched into minutes, and by the time they were halfway to the gates Anders was lost. Saul had made no move at all to stop the moans and the gyrations Anders made with his hips as he jerked his head forwards and back, fucking himself on the plug while Saul's hand encouraged every thrust.

The creaking of metal gates, and the noise of too many people talking and bargaining at once brought him back to the present. He wanted so much to remain still, but as he forced his hips to stop moving, he had to clench down on the plug inside him.

Once he was taught how much pleasure one little move could bring, trying to stop only made him harder. And even if he managed to stop, Saul wasn't about to allow him any reprieve.

Anders yanked his head up forcefully, releasing the tension between his head and the plug. Beneath the veil his cheeks were red and his breath came heavy, too warm even under the square of canvas, sweat tickling on his neck.

Brancing himself, Anders opened his eyes.

Kirkwall was never this crowded or this noisy. The gates opened to face a wide street, and Anders could see the same market he saw when he first woke in Minrathous, but this time from the other side.

While a few people carried on with their conversations and tasks, most of the crowd were staring right at him, the better dressed upper class with mild amusement, and the slaves who wore plainer clothing than their masters, even so still more embellished than any commoner in Ferelden, looked on with something he could not fathom at first, for it was impossible.

They stared with obvious envy, as though he should have been so lucky to be bound and displayed through the streets. Anders slowed his breathing and tried to calm himself, but Saul's hand was insistent and the many days and nights of being teased without relief made each touch and movement so deliciously good that he could not help moaning aloud.

Each heartbeat drove him into the irresistible rhythm of the final moments before an orgasm, chasing that finishing point of no return that would not come.

It was Saul who finally stopped him, tipping his head up and keeping him still, a bemused smile gracing his lips. Beneath his veil, Anders started to cry silently with shame, tears mingling with a sheen of sweat; they were all looking at him now, the cacophony of voices he heard as they emerged from the gates silenced with their attention on him and Saul.

"It seems you were putting on quite a show," Saul moved his hand away from Anders' chin. His eyes narrowed to slits, "Should I take that gag off so they can hear you as well?"

Anders froze, too mortified with himself to protest. The gag made each movement of his head both a temptation and a torment, but it was also liberating. Without it his voice would come freely and of his own will, and he feared that responsibility of coherent words.

His grip on the crossbar tightened and the thread of control he hoarded was strung taut; one touch, and he would snap, to debauch himself in front of the crowd.

All these people surrounding him, slaves, mages, elves, tradesmen; they were sentient beings, and even in servitude they had some semblance of dignity. Some slaves were traveling on their own, wicker baskets slung over the crook of an arm or a dressed bird over a shoulder, some followed behind a mage, as bodyguards or scribes, but they all served a role.

Saul could do anything to him and none of them would bat an eye. The plaything of the person who held his leash; that was his role. He could either choose to accept it willingly, bending his will and adapt as he had always done until he met Justice, or stay uncompromising as he had for the past six years and fight, until Saul finally found a way to break him.

Anders stayed perfectly still, not daring to move an inch. Even the minute motion of the litter, one of the bearers adjusting the weight while they waited for their master to give the command to move, was intimately linked to every inch of exposed skin.

This role was his. A public representation of punishment, of what could be done to a slave if he was disobedient enough. At least, that was Anders' interpretation of it, bound up as he was to be humiliated and paraded through the streets.

But they did not look on him with fear; it was a mixture of awe and envy he felt from them, and that feeling only grew when Saul brushed aside half his veil to lean closer, to whisper in his ear. The gag was loosened and he felt the tension in his groin abating slightly, back to the constant ache he was beginning to get used to.

"If you can hold your head high and keep your tail up, I'll untie the leash from the plug."

The gag was removed entirely, handed over to one of their retinue, and Saul had Anders' leash in his hand again, still attached to the tail. Saul waited, breathing a little against the shell of Anders' ear, but Anders could not bring himself to submit, to agree to what Saul offered him to save him from more humiliation.

There used to be a marked difference between being forced into submission and Anders willingly submitting, and the line was blurring by the hour. He had already ate like an animal for Saul, and it was out of his own volition as much as he wanted to deny it, having waited for a hand to force him down towards the food.

"So you would rather break than bend, I see," Saul said quietly.

"No, master," Anders blurted out, survival instinct taking the reins. If the few weeks in Tevinter had taught him anything, it was that things could always be worse than what they were.

But Saul had decided that he had given Anders enough chances. He sucked Anders' earlobe between his lips and yanked on the leash, and Anders' remaining shred of control, tenuous as it was, shattered in between.

Anders let out a loud, stuttering cry as Saul's hand wrapped around his erection and began to pump with assured, rhythmic motions, slick with nothing but precome and sweat. The leash was tugged to the same beat, the rounded head of the plug brushing his sweet spot without pause.

The sensations were blinding, but not enough to block out the din around them; he was drawing a crowd with the noises he made, whatever control he imagined he had over himself wrenched away. People walking by stopped to watch, and by ones and twos they gathered. Anders could not focus on them, the spectators, each person that looked on without shock or pity, for what surrounded him was madness, a collective hive of lunacy he was not ready to be a part of.

This could not become normal for him. In a world where this, what was done to him, was accepted - even envied, applauded - he could not live as he was, the uncompromising rebel that he had been. If he took that person and retreated into the shell of himself, then perhaps, but to wall himself away from reality was also madness.

_Would you rather break than bend?_

Once, Anders knew how to bend, to adapt and live; the selfish person he was, the one who could be content anywhere, irregardless of the injustice around him, was gone.

He heard catcalls and laughter, comments on how aroused he sounded, compliments on his form. His own voice betrayed him, pleading for _more, please, harder_ , with barely formed words that came out between wordless cries. If he could drown himself in pleasure he could stop seeing them, this crowd cheering him on.

His ropes felt tighter than usual, tied to hold him in a crawling position, not this prostration he performed now, and they pushed into his chest and the tender skin between his thighs and his groin. Each pair of eyes in the crowd had a hold on him, the prickling heat tangible on his flesh, touched by invisible hands.

"You love this," Saul's voice by his ear, calm and even. Though he blushed at the thought, Anders knew that this was not an accusation, simply a statement. "Any one of the men here would gladly fuck you. Do you want that?"

His cock jumped in Saul's hand, giving his answer away. Starve a man long enough and he would eat anything. He hungered, but not for just anyone, not for some random man off the street. Anders dreamt of dusky skin lining the hollow of regal collarbones, dimples defining the base of a muscular back, gray eyes glittering in silvery moonlight.

Anders knew that his protests meant nothing at all, and if it was what Saul wanted, he could leave him on the street defenseless and let the crowd have him. Begging served no purpose other than to entertain, but Anders had to trust that Saul took the gag out for a reason - so he could beg for mercy.

"No, I don't want them, please," he spoke quietly so only Saul could hear him, sensing that if the crowd heard him he would have sealed his own fate. "Please. I only want - just - I -"

"Have you forgotten how to speak, slave?" They were so close now Anders could see the centers of Saul's eyes; everything was too bright to Anders now, blurred to indistinct shapes. In the brilliance of a Tevinter afternoon, the pupils of Saul's eyes were pinpoints.

Anders did not want to dwell on how dark his own gaze appeared.

He began to speak, the way a slave should. His words were rehearsed, reciting the only proper answer, "I only want to please you, master."

"I have no wish to see you taken right now. Lucky you," his master smiled, close enough that Anders could only see his lips. Unwinding the leash from his wrist, he gave Anders a bit more slack so he wouldn't be pulling on the tail with each step he took, but made no move to untie him. "Hold your head and tail high for me, and I'll have no reason to punish you further, understand?"

Not right now, but no guarantees for later today, tomorrow, next week; by a guest, by a random man passing on the street. There was no law against it, at least none that were enforced. Saul had given him no warning that he might be used by others - he had hardly used Anders at all himself - but perhaps that was the real punishment, not just to be paraded dressed up as a pet, but for him to see with his own eyes what life could be like for a pleasure slave.

When he was young, a lifetime ago now, he defied the templars by running away. Each time he brought on worse punishment, but they were simple things; chores, loss of outside exercise time, and eventually solitary confinement. The last he thought was the worst thing that they could have done to him within the confines of chantry law.

Here, there existed nothing that protected Anders and even the templars of Kirkwall couldn't have strung him up in lowtown and offered passersby to fuck him. People frowned upon public rape, in spite of the victim being a mage. What templars did in Thedas to mages they did behind closed doors. Here, the only thing protecting a slave was, ironically, his master.

Yet he had to live through this; how much of himself he could salvage while he navigated the twisted life of a slave, that was the real test of his resilience.

Anders forced his head up to look forward, "I understand, master."

As long as he chose to obey willingly, his master would let no harm befall him. It was enough reassurance to carry him through the weeks, outside, fitting into his strange role on the streets of Minrathous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is getting very, very long, and my plot is running away like a speed griffin. Maybe I'll get it back in a chapter or two...or three.
> 
> At least two anyway, before we cut back to Kirkwall.


	10. Lies

The midday sun shone full on the slave market of Minrathous.

Anders realized that he must have arrived on a rest day, since it was much busier now than he remembered. Tents were erected here and there blocking out the heat, and all around them was the smell of salt, sweat and sea.

There was an especially large white pavilion in the middle of the market that could probably house hundreds of people standing shoulder to shoulder, its banners flying above dead and limp in the hot, sluggish breeze.

It was to this tent that Anders was being carried. As they drew nearer they heard the rapid speech of an auctioneer, calling out numbers so high Anders wasn't sure if it was in silver or gold.

Inside, it was cool; pillars of magically conjured ice slowly melted in the heat, and water ran out through a network of small trenches built into the ground that Anders could barely make out, the liquid shimmering with refracted light. They reminded him of the networks built into the stone floor in the hightown cellars, but those, as he read before, were made for blood.

As were these, probably. Anders shivered, gooseflesh standing out on his upper arms.

A line of naked slaves were being ushered on to a stage in the middle of the tent, each one of them beautiful and obedient, not needing shackles or ropes. The latest one was a pretty elvhen woman, probably early twenties, with flawless silvery skin.

"Sold, to Magister Thelonius, for ninety-two gold coins," the auctioneer called out.

Anders' tried to recall what he was sold for - eighty gold was it? And his total price was one hundred and fifty. That was his first exchange price, and from what he heard this morning some magisters were willing to pay upwards of four hundred gold for a healer.

Most of the slaves here were elves, and none of them were mages. They stepped up to the stage on their own. At the auctioneer's behest each did a little turn, opening their mouths to display sets of pearly, perfect teeth. Some were auctioned off for their beauty, some for their skills. As Saul rested near a pillar of ice for the remainder of the afternoon, Anders listened and watched for any sign of rebellion, finding none.

The highest bid he heard was just under one hundred gold, for a human who could read and write in trade common and Arcanum.

Saul took notes, and it seemed to be all he did. Perhaps he was only keeping a finger on the average prices; Anders could not begin to guess. He kept close to Anders, idly playing with his ropes or his veil when he wasn't concentrating on the current auction, as he would a cat.

In the hazy moments in the afternoon where sleep deprivation weighed down his eyelids and Anders began to nod and yawn, Saul took a seat on his handrail and bade Anders to rest his cheek against his hip.

Anders wasn't just dressed like a pet; he was a pet. The touches along his back were affectionate, gentle, and he was so very tired. The droning voice of the auctioneer went on and on, and he dozed with Saul's hand on his back and the musky salt scent of a summer day in his nostrils.

_"To enslave another creature does not seem just," the voice boomed, not quite speaking through the rotting corpse as he spoke all around it, a spirit of the fade._

_Anders looked down at his cat, head peeking out of a leather satchel. He looked content - kept warm, fed, given love. What was Justice complaining about?_

_"He's not a slave! He's a friend," he stroked one of Pounce's ears; the answering purr reverberated through the leather and the thin silk of his Tevinter robe. "And he's also a cat."_

_"A cat that lacks freedom," Justice snorted haughtily._

_"Just ignore him, Ser Pounce-a-lot. They don't have pets in the fade, apparently."_

Anders woke to a soft tug on his leash. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he saw Saul staring at him, a puzzled look on his face. A smooth finger drew a line down his cheek, coming away wet.

"What were you dreaming about?" He asked.

"My cat," Anders answered. Better to appear sentimental than to admit to conversing with a fade spirit. It was a lie that harkened to another time, when he first met Hawke, impressionable, innocent Hawke.

"Hmm," Saul smiled, moving forward to kiss away the trails of tears. His lips were warm and soft, the gesture too intimate, and too similar to what Anders saw in his dream, his cat nuzzling close to purr.

The moment passed quickly. With a swish of canvas curtains they were moving out of the tent into summer twilight. The sky above them had taken on the impossible colour of dyed satin, jewel blue.

Saul led them towards a darker, drearier corner of the market. There were no tarps or decorated tents with pet slaves here, only small metal wire cages barely big enough for a man to crouch in, containing the old and the infirm. They must have roasted in the sun all day; there were a few here and there that had died in the heat, but the slavers had not bothered to remove their bodies. It smelled like darktown, except worse, since it was warmer here than even Kirkwall on the hottest day of summer.

Anders wrinkled his nose even as he took in the horrible sight. Sometimes one saw things that were so atrocious there was no way for the mind to process them. It was the casual cruelty that bothered him the most; even templars would not have treated mages like this, leaving them to die a slow death under the sun.

No one cared about these people enough to put a tarp over them, to remember to water and feed them as they would have done for a beast of burden. Some of these older slaves here had probably served their whole lives, and now that their worth had dwindled to nothing, they were left here to rot.

Each cage had a rough painted sign out front of their prices, numbered in coppers and silvers, and the most expensive one here was for one single gold piece. A human life could be worth so little; compared to this, Anders was definitely fortunate to have been reserved for Saul.

The one slave that was deemed to be worth a whole gold piece was too young to be here, olive skinned and even that sun burnt and reddened, his limbs hogtied to a pole, his eyes feverish and clouded. Saul walked past the line of cages and stopped in front of the young man, and he flicked a single gold coin to the bored looking slaver.

Saul untied Anders' hands from the crossbar, and commanded, "heal him."

He needn't have asked. If Anders had seen this man on the street thus injured he would have rushed to help. There were too many little bruises, cuts and scrapes, but no broken bones or ruptured organs. Anders soothed the burn in his skin, closed the cuts, and it wasn't long before the man's eyes were clear as Anders drove off the illness that threatened at the edges.

Heedless of the dirt that covered the slave, Saul half-cradled his head and brushed his hair back with his fingers, studying his features. Then he took one of his hands and examined the callouses and where they formed, rubbing away the dirt crusted on his skin.

"When was the last time you ate?" Saul asked.

A long pause followed, the younger man staring as if he wasn't entirely sure if this was all a dream, and then, "two days."

"My cook makes wonderful Antivan food. Can you walk?"

"I think so," he sounded surprised, and turned to Anders for a moment before averting his eyes at his nudity. "Thank you."

The olive skinned man turned out to be an Antivan jeweler named Marcello captured near Nevarra. He bit off a finger from one of the slavers who caught him, and they thought him dangerous enough that they kept him tied up the whole trip. When he refused to speak or obey no matter how much they beat him, the slavers left him to rot in what they referred to as the 'refuse pen.'

"It's where blood mages go when they need an extra body or two for a ritual. The cheapest life force money can buy," Saul explained coolly, raising one hand to gesture for more wine. "Waste of a life, if you ask me. But I'm not a mage so no one's asking."

They both turned to Anders then, sitting on his heels on the floor next to Saul. Occasionally Saul broke off a piece of bread, sopped up a bit of oil and vinegar, and placed it near Anders' mouth for him to eat, but since there was a guest present his veil stayed on.

Anders ate without complaint. It was that or to go hungry, or risk being forced to eat out of a bowl in front of a stranger.

"Why do you have a mage? And why is he dressed like that?" Marcello was so far the first person to question the validity of Saul having a naked human pet at his heels.

"Why, or how?" Saul laughed, the sound laced with a trace of irony. "If they're caught outside the Imperium and registered as a slave, anyone rich enough can own a mage. And as you have experienced for yourself already, a healer slave is a useful thing to have."

"But why the," Marcello stumbled over his words, looking for one that would not offend. "The, um ... attire?"

"He was disobedient," Saul looked at Marcello meaningfully, and a shock of fear flitted over the Antivan's eyes. He quickly changed the subject, "I already have a client looking for a metal worker. Do you think you can transfer your skills to bigger things, like statuettes?"

Anders listened, but he could not quite make out the meaning of their words after that, the shop-talk too complicated and overall boring. He used his magic today to save someone; it felt good to be useful, proving, if only to himself, that magic could serve man without enslaving an entire nation. That single act of magic was nearly enough to wipe out the afternoon's events and how the crowd jeered.

But they did not jeer, Anders reminded himself. They watched and chatted as though he was nothing more than a circus monkey doing back flips.

"... the Kirkwall circle's revolted and they killed their Knight Commander," Marcello said. Anders caught the word Kirkwall and listened intently. "No one has the story straight - some mage blew up the chantry with magic, the Tal-Vashoth hanging around the city used up the last of their gaatlok, the Maker himself leveled it because the city worshiped demons; the Knight Commander was possessed, their Champion was possessed - it changes every time I hear it. There's going to be war, it seems. Those mages are going to turn the Free Marches into a new Tevinter Imperium."

Anders tried to contain his horror, but beneath his veil the blood drained from his face. That was not his intention at all, that this accursed country where they had normal all wrong would be able to spread their lunacy. But he hadn't thought of anything beyond the chantry; he had trusted Hawke to make of him a martyr, but Hawke had surprised them all by allowing him to live.

But considering all the things that happened to him in his life so far, he would be truly surprised if their one final act of vengeance went off exactly the way they planned.

The strong always ruled over the weak. That was the savage reality he was shown in Tevinter. Perhaps Fenris was right, that given free reign, blood mages would make of themselves magisters.

"Well, the Archon won't have that. But he isn't going to say no to an expansion," Saul took a sip of his sweet white wine, and sensing Anders' discomfort, offered the rest of the glass to him and held it as he drank.

"And turn the entire Northern Thedas into one big Imperium? Oh, that's just great. I've only been here three days and I've already had enough of this country. You're the first good thing that's ever happened to me, and considering that you're going to sell me off tomorrow, that's not saying much."

Marcello's syllables were beginning to slur into one another. The slaves kept refilling their cups out of decanters, so Anders couldn't even keep track of how many bottles they were drinking.

"Every slave is entitled to buy their way out of slavery," Saul leaned back in his chair, pulling Anders to rest against his thigh. "I'll negotiate a contract for you so you can get out for half your asking price after five years."

"And how exactly does a slave go about earning money?" Marcello smiled wistfully.

"We can discuss that ... another time," Saul stroked the side of Anders' head with his thumb, a lulling, gentle motion that reminded him how little he had slept in the weeks since he arrived. "Perhaps when you come back for your monthly tribute."

Marcello was left sitting alone at the table, staring into his plate as Anders was led away, trying to puzzle out what he had just heard.

So slavery was not absolute nor forever. That was news to him, a bit of Imperial law that Fenris failed to mention in all their years of barely contained enmity. Even so, how could one live like a slave for five years and hope to function in normal society? Fenris certainly did not achieve it, living as an alcoholic in a mansion where he did not even bother patching up the holes in the roof.

Neither did Orana, who refused to go outside even after three years of living as a servant in Hawke's mansion. All her money went into the bank, the poor girl not daring to spend a copper lest Hawke might some day ask her for her wages back.

Could he claim to be stronger than Fenris, the snarling and bitter elf who survived having lyrium branded into his skin? Anders wasn't certain. _Nothing was certain._ Even the convictions he held on to all these years, that mages must be free, was unraveling as surely as his resolve to remain strong in the face of slavery.

His revolution was spreading like wild fire through the Free Marches, and just thinking about it set his heart racing with anxiety. What if he was wrong, and in overturning a thousand years of prejudice, he was simply moving time back to before Andraste conquered Thedas with her faith?

Barring speculation of the future, it took a stronger person than Anders to sacrifice the innocent to fuel a cause; and he suspected that he was no longer that person. Perhaps he never was, and Vengeance was the one who called all the shots.

It could have been that he was always bound and led around on a leash, and the only thing Saul did to him was to make his servitude visible. His mind steered away as soon as the thought arose; even thinking about his possession gave him chills. It had been weeks since he last felt Justice's influence, and the silence, the calm in his mind was disconcerting.

He recalled a conversation they had on Sundermount, not too long ago, when Hawke asked if there was a way to reverse spirit possession. Keeper Marethari had told him that the mage would never be truly himself again; Anders wondered if that was happening even now, with Justice walled off from the rest of his mind.

It would explain why he felt so drawn to the man holding his leash. At the very least, that it was a physical symptom of a spiritual illness would assuage him of the guilt he felt while he lusted after the man who held him captive.

Later, after his cool bath where Mira sluiced off the day's dust and grime, and she rubbed ointment into his rope burns, his nightly harness was tied on while his skin was still moist.

"What's going on?" It wasn't part of their daily routine, this second bath and the ropes being laced on while outside his alcove. If his time here had taught him anything, it was that boredom and routine were good things compared to whatever surprises Saul had in store for him.

Mira could only give him a smile, and there was no fear in it, no warning of danger or pain to come. His leather leash was clasped on to his collar, plain and brown, not the fancy one he wore in public. He wasn't tied down at all, the harness hardly hindering his movements.

But he was not foolish enough to think that he could run away farther than the entrance to the bathing chamber. He crawled behind Mira to Saul's room, feeling strangely comfortable with that singular goal, putting one hand in front of anoter, following the little tug on his neck signalling him where to go. So blinded by the sheer mindlessness of his path, he didn't even notice that he was being led to the bed instead of his alcove until his leash changed hands.

Not knowing what to expect, Anders crawled up the little steps that led on to the bed. The mattress turned out to be nothing more than a network of leather straps crisscrossed and bound to metal rails, usually covered by a tucked sheet, which had been removed for the night. As Saul looked on, Mira carefully pulled one of Anders' arms through a hole in the 'mattress' and laced him in, and with another rope she tied his legs to the bed, his other arm bound to the side, flat against his body.

When she was finally done, slicing the ends of the rope off with the knife she kept at her waist, Anders ended up lying on his side somewhat rigidly, but comfortably attached to the mattress. Saul stretched out behind him, bare chest to his back, so close he could feel the man's breath on the nape of his neck.

Mira excused herself, disappearing behind the screen with a bow.

"So long as you're my pet, you will be sleeping with me." Saul whispered in his ear.

Anders could not move; his limbs were as tied down as they could be. Each breath he took pressed him to Saul behind him, a trail of hair on the panes of his hard stomach tickling his lower back, half-hard member prodding near his entrance but with no move to breach him. His cock jumped in anticipation, little twitches of want and clenching that danced along his skin, and he imagined Saul could read his every thought.

Saul teased him casually with light kisses behind his neck and feather light touches on his arm, slowly stoking his simmering desires to light. It was just as well that he couldn't move; Anders had already found out how ready his body was to beg for satisfaction this afternoon. He had no wish to repeat that performance.

"No retorts?" Saul had propped himself up on an elbow and was now looking down at him curiously, turning Anders' chin so their eyes could meet. "You're not going to tell me you would much rather hang in your little closet than sleep with me?"

"I ..." Anders began, but could not finish his sentence. To repeat Saul's words back at him seemed hollow and untrue, but to admit that he did not want to be alone in his alcove was also damning. Heat rose in his cheeks, only burning hotter still as Saul took in his silence and huffed soft laughter into the side of his neck.

"Sweet little defiant slave. We have a busy day tomorrow. Sleep." Saul kissed his burning cheek, lingering a trifle too long until Anders gasped. His voice was deep and low and Anders could feel the rumbling through his back. "I'll keep you safe."

Anders had never felt safe, not since the moment he left his childhood home. The Circle was never safety, the templars' blade a constant threat, and each of his escapes only proved to him how vulnerable he was even with the power of the elements at his fingertips. In the wardens his safety was short lived, the darkspawn moved literally beneath their feet, a scritch-scratching inside his head that warned him of their presence. In Kirkwall he lived with the constant worry of the templars coming to his door. Even with Hawke's protection, there wasn't a single night that he slept without a staff by his bed and his coat lying next to him, ready at a moment's notice to escape into the sewers.

His hair was still damp from the bath, and Saul carded his fingers through it, snaking them under the golden strands, moving his smooth fingertips to massage at his scalp. It wouldn't be the first time Anders fell asleep in Saul's arms, though the other times he had been so weak he found it difficult to raise his head. Here, his choice was more pronounced, and as he relaxed into the touch, it was Anders that chose to melt into the chest against his back and the strong muscular leg flung over his own.

_I'm not giving in. I'm only -_ and he tried, and failed, to come up with an excuse, a reason why he felt so safe surrounded by Saul.

_Waiting. I'm waiting for Hawke. That is all._ It was easier to swallow than the alternative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter = more pron (it's already written, and already on the meme...needs cleaning up.)  
> Chapter after = some plot. Some. It's going to take place in a public bathhouse so I might get _distracted_. Florian appears 2/3 into the chapter.  
>  Chapter after that = Kirkwall, Nevarra City, and what the gang had been up to since Anders' disappearance.


	11. Submission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *cough*
> 
> No real plot here. You've been warned.

A week of waiting at Saul's side went by quickly, uneventful for the most part after the first day. Anders learned the hard way that the presence of a nude slave drew no comment or even second glances so long as said slave was quiet. It was the defiant ones that invited attention.

Still, by the end of the first week he had extended his sentence by another ten days. Some he gained that first day, some with carelessness when his attention wandered and he did not hear a command spoken or when his resistance proved too hard to overcome. Either way, Saul tallied up every one of his infractions and whispered it to Anders each night before he fell asleep, acting both as enticement and punishment.

"Keep this up and I'll have to think that you're doing it on purpose. Should I keep you on a leash next to me," and they were pressed too close together already, no distance between them at all, only pressure and heat. Saul's voice dipped low as he leaned even closer, lips nipping at the edge of Anders' ear. "By my side, always?"

Anders closed this eyes, conjuring Hawke's smile the first time they met, starry eyed and bright, his white teeth paired with the crinkling of laugh lines. They were younger then, both of them too idealistic for life they somehow managed to muddle through.

The exact colour of his eyes were bright brown, the kind of brilliant amber that one would almost expect to glow in the dark. Try as he might, Anders could not picture them, not definitely, the way they used to glitter by candlelight and red silk sheets. That one night was so far away in the past now, the memory indistinct, but even a month ago it was still fresh in his mind. He still had Hawke with him though; a breath away across a shared rented bed, but he could not remember if it was Hawke that burrowed into his chest or the other way around.

He had lost his liberty, his right to freedom, though he technically never had that in the first place, only stolen time. He used to think of it as a right, that the Circle had it all wrong in their treatment of mages, but the reality of Tevinter gave him pause.

Besides his tainted ideals, each second, each hour, each day, Saul made it harder to remember why he wanted to run from this embrace.

Saul had bought his life, and in return he gave Anders safety and acceptance as he had never experienced. It seemed he was determined to take Anders' heart as well, waking him every morning with soft kisses, lulling him to sleep every night with gentle caresses.

At first it startled him to open his eyes and see Saul gazing down at him, the ropes bounding him already half undone. But it had become another constant in his life that he would wake to this.

_Always._

An answering, alarming tightness followed, along with a clenching in his chest. Then tears came, causing a confusing stinging in his eyes. Anders turned and blinked it away, refusing everything they represented, shaking his head as though he could shake feelings off along with this show of weakness.

A steady hand cupped his cheek and held him still. It was late evening, not long after sunset, and Mira had left a single sconce burning, its light flickering in the barely perceptible night breeze. Then Saul's cheek was pressed to his suddenly, the rest of his body draping over Anders, front to back, the gesture strangely intimate.

When Saul drew away there was a trail of moisture that reflected the fire's light, a mirror to the coolness Anders felt on his cheek.

"Beautiful," Saul whispered, and every time that word was spoken, it hit a nerve in his chest with a flare of tight, almost pain.

 _Beautiful,_ Saul drawing a line down Anders' spine with a fingertip as he ate out of a bowl on the floor. _Beautiful,_ the willingness with which he followed by the third day, stopping gracefully in time with the steps of his master instead of the tug of his leash. _Beautiful,_ and his master would relish even his tears.

Saul did not know the ugly things Anders had done, the blood on his hands, and blood still to be spilled, bodies piling up of templars, mages, abominations; enough to fill tents and tents of slave auctions and their channels built for blood.

For all the evil committed in Tevinter by the day, perhaps it compared well to one single moment, the chain reaction he began with one act of vengeance.

Anders was going to live a lie if he was to live at all. Hawke could never have convinced Anders with one single word, always scarcely believing himself as he uttered a compliment. Hawke functioned well in the good times, back when they both knew how to smile. But when push came to shove and Anders was broken to the point of looking forward to death on that ash-filled, fateful day, Hawke was at a loss.

_Just go._

So many years of dodged conversations, Hawke sidestepping when the topic became serious or concerned things bigger than himself, and Anders ignored it all. Then he had killed hundreds of innocents, all at once, the reality of it looming above them and still his friend hadn't been able to come to a decision aside from _just get out of my sight._

Perhaps that was why they were drawn to one another. Runners, both of them.

Saul was unlike their band of misfits; he did not ignore problems or waited for things to go away. It was obvious now with his heart as the wager that he never fought Saul. The war was always between Anders and himself, with Saul to facilitate the process.

This man hadn't been breaking him down at all. He was building Anders up from where Justice left him broken among the rubble of the chantry. Justice was full of disapproval for everything Anders was while he took advantage of inhabiting a human being. Embracing his feelings, be it his desires towards Hawke or something as simple as wanting a nap in the afternoon, was indulgent, selfish, slovenly. It was only when he ignored even his basic needs and followed the voice in his head that he felt at peace.

He accused Merrill of being steered by her demon more than once, but what of himself? Most of the decisions he had made in the past six years he would not have come to on his own. A spirit's influence was insidious, and only when they were completely at odds were they ever of two minds.

With Justice locked away, there was nothing to guide him, only Saul, who approved when Anders gave in to his desires, be it to touch or food or rest, feeding his need for affection. Now Anders turned to stare, as his vision cleared and his tears dried at last, into a pair of eyes full of understanding.

No anger in those storm gray orbs, only peace, a person that could show acceptance for the insanity surrounding them everyday. Saul must have known that it was wrong as well, even as he lived here as a neighbor to the magisters. Yet he survived decade upon decade, above blood magic or the cruelty that littered the very streets.

The confidence he exuded was magnetic; Anders could not help but be drawn to it, the way others had shown interest in Saul wherever they went.

"That's it," Saul mouthed the words into Anders' parted lips. At least that was what Anders thought he said, before the words were swallowed up and he half closed his eyes beneath a wave of emotions he could not fight.

A week ago he was a snarling wild thing. _Wild beast,_ Saul had called him, tying a gag to his mouth to keep him from biting. Now he yielded, lips parting farther when a tongue swiped over them, seeking entrance. Saul must have been able to feel the quivering under him, for he had draped himself over his mage, one hand bracing against the bed while the other entwined in his hair to tip him closer, adding to the pressure between their lips.

There was an insistent touch on his leg, a hardness that Anders had seen and craved, imagined how it would feel inside of him, against a wall, over the ornate table in the atrium, above the grate in the wine cellar while he was bound. Anders also knew his master by now, knew that he would never have taken Anders against his will; simpler things he would have forced, but this burning affair could only be possible if he was willing.

Saul had waited patiently, waiting for an opening, for his defiant mage to yield.

Anders was still tied down to his side, but he was straining against his ropes. He did so not to fight or run away, but to be closer, to meld his body against Saul. Abruptly, his arm was free, the rope falling down through the leather that made up the mattress.

A tickling sensation traveled up his arm, Saul wiggling his fingers in lieu of a smile.

It felt as though a part of him came away when Saul withdrew his tongue. Anders made a sound of dismay no louder than a breath, pulling in air as though Saul could be drawn in with it. Saul held his freed hand, touching it to the side of his face. It was the first time he was allowed this touch; rough stubble rasped across his palm, his fingers curling a little, wanting to grasp and cup his cheek, but Saul was already turning towards its center, kissing a newly formed callous.

It was new, gained from walking on all fours, eyes forward landing only as far as the hand on his lead.

Reverent kisses, worshiping kisses savoring the taste of his skin, ardent kisses down his arm lingering in the crook of his elbow, licking up the salt that had begun to gather there after the evening's bath.

Anders always thought he was a strong man, but he had no defenses against kindness, having experienced too little of it through all his years. Pain he could withstand easily, steeling his mind against the cracking of whips. He had woke defiant after his face was pressed against a dirt floor, tasting blood in his mouth, the memories too old and beaten down to recall clearly, only that every single part of him had woke burning with pain.

This was his one weakness, this gentle invasion that searched for his soft underbelly and took his heart and twisted. His master was a predator that knew exactly what he was after, attacking until the walls came down.

Lips were on his again, soft and gentle, barely a dusting against his skin, hands working at the knots holding his legs to the leather. Anders had more room now to move, and he could demand, to hook his arm over Saul's neck and pull him down. But it was not his place to demand or take.

It was always his place to submit, only so much room in his servitude to choose. In the space of a heartbeat, Anders had chosen. He opened his mouth wider in invitation, not daring a suggestion, only to give a sign that he was willing. He could feel a twitch of lips against his own, a slight smile he could picture in bright sunlight, and Anders knew that the eyes above them crinkled.

He had woken to that smile for a week, no, longer than a week, now. Held against his chest and exhausted, dozing even while he ached; Saul was the one constant in this shifting world with its anarchic rules.

Saul had fed him from his hand, and had fed his need for affection and touch, and now Anders' hunger had grown until he was willing to open beneath him. A questing tongue dived between his teeth, tangling with his own, tasting faintly of honeyed fruit.

Then the ropes were gone save for the harness over his torso, a network of diamond shapes with knots pressing into his skin. His arms fell naturally to loop on the back of Saul's shoulders, his legs wrapped around his hips, and though he feared reprimand he could not help rubbing his own erection against Saul where they pressed together.

"It's all right to show me you want me," Saul said.

Anders took him at his word; because Saul could be taken at his word. Where others sweetened their lies, Saul preferred the ugly truth, as _there was beauty in everything._ He shifted to tune their bodies to align, then a hard thrust and a loud moan as they slid against each other, Saul's soft grunt the only sign of his slipping control.

His body clutched at emptiness, a rhythmic clenching Anders blushed to think about. He was accustomed to being filled during the day, a constant reminder that he was reserved, that his master's whims stood between him and a random stranger. But he wanted this more than anything, to feel him sliding in and breaching that sensitive pucker of skin, his dark impeccable mask cracking in ecstasy. Anders shifted again, pulling his knees closer to himself until their cocks were no longer touching, until Saul's erection, hard and unyielding, rested against his entrance.

He was dry, but that hardly seemed to matter at the moment, so overcame with lust he could take fullness with the pain. A stream of cool liquid hitting the back of his thighs was already being smoothed into his skin, however, and without preparation his body took in Saul as though he belonged there, a part he was bringing back into himself.

It seemed to take forever before he was sheathed; Saul not pushing at all, waiting for Anders to grasp him and pull him in. The slick oil smoothed the passage but there was little pressure, only Anders' body taking him in a fraction of an inch at a time, loosening and tightening until they were joined, Saul's hand behind Anders' neck anchoring him so he could not look away.

He would not be allowed to run from this, Saul was forcing him to own the decision in this instant. Not giving him time for regrets, fingers slipping beneath the ropes sitting across his nipples, Saul lifted him.

The large bead that sat behind his sac, shifting with each step he took during the day, was lifted along. It dug into the little bump of nerves even as the matching thick rope that separated from the point of the bead pulled his cheeks apart. Weightlessness and disorientation was quickly joined by a jolt of pleasure deep and searing as gravity took him back down, Saul rolling back on his heels, taking Anders with him.

Anders was above him, and while that usually meant he was free to ride, the ropes in Saul's hands prevented any movement from his side.

Each lifting by his harness brought the bead rubbing into him from the outside, and each drop was a direct assault, a blinding, searing sensation that had him screaming on landing. The long hard cock he spied some mornings disappeared entirely, only to reappear again, slowly, Anders' body lifted as if he was a marionette on strings.

"Too much?" Saul asked, but his smile was knowing.

It was perfect; the weeks of teasing had him over-sensitive, pain lessened and pleasure heightened. Anders wanted to reply - it was amazing, wonderful, he had never felt so thoroughly taken, but all he managed was a long keening sigh as he was lifted and dropped again.

In the back of his mind he remembered that he couldn't come, the need to be filled was satisfied and the pressure built and built with no end in sight. It was not too much; he wanted more. This rocking of their bodies was too gentle, even while the sound of his pleasure echoed in their chambers, no doubt drifting as far as the high walls.

Anders shook his head; Saul took his meaning and grinned. In the moonlight Anders saw a flash of white teeth before he was pushed down, hard biceps hitting the back of his knees, hands holding on to the rope on his chest pushing the harness up towards his collarbones, and the slow leisurely pace they had set before turn to fast and brutalizing.

From his throat came one long scream, and Anders could not stop it, Saul's pelvis slamming against his arse so hard the air was thick with the sound of skin slapping on skin. He tensed immediately, instinct holding his body tight in the face of sudden pain, but in this case it only served to add to it and he winced.

There was no choice at all but to relinquish control, letting the tension go so he would not break under the onslaught of Saul, buried to the hilt and nearly leaving him every second.

It had to be too much now, and yet he could take more - he could take this all night if that was what Saul had in mind. He had no release to chase after, and he was walking a path without knowing where it led; he could only enjoy the scenery.

As he let go of that last fragment of control, the tiniest shard of tension, Saul smiled, and the corner of his mouth turned wicked and alluring. The bead seemed to dig in deeper as Saul rolled the harness upwards, the next thrust came harder, impossibly deeper though he was sure he had taken it as far as it could go. For a moment he felt every inch as it slid into him, and Anders began to shake as the tip of that thick cock brushed against the tight knot of nerves.

Spots flared in his vision, covering it with darkness until there was nothing but the night sky with Saul's eyes as the only stars. Anders thought he heard Saul speaking, so lightly it could have been the wind, words he could not make out that brought tears even though he did not understand them. There was a quivering in his limbs, in his stomach, in his heart, and his cock twitched against Saul's flat belly as he was held tight against his chest.

Unexpectedly, spasms battered his body with their suddenness. Anders cried out, hands scrabbling, nails raking hard enough to leave lines behind.

"Maker," was the only word he managed to squeeze out. A reminder by his ear sounded in a husky whisper, and he repeated, "master."

A peppering of sweet kisses on his cheeks, a soft tongue darting out to drink of his tears brought him back to earth. Saul was still moving against him, slowing in their joining but the fluttering continued, as did his moans.

"What just ..." he tried to speak, but his speech was interrupted as a wave of pleasure crested again, and his words turns to indistinct cries. It was familiar and yet so strange, the spasms of his muscles without the ropey discharge as evidence.

Saul's mouth was slanted on top of his, and his tongue invaded Anders' mouth just as his cock was still thrusting inside of him. His strokes were gentler now, and when he pulled away, necessity to breathe winning over the need to kiss, he gave Anders such a warm approving smile that it threatened to break his heart.

"You submitted beautifully," he breathed though honey scented lips. Beneath him, Anders shivered with the aftershocks of another orgasm, the heat inside him released as a choked sigh. "Does that feel good?"

Saul must know the answer to that already, but Anders knew what was required of him. "Yes, master."

"Sweet, sweet slave." Saul kissed his jaw; the tingling need followed and even that little teasing set him to moaning. An approving smile was given along with the reward that was their evening so far, "then I will give you as much as you can take."

Anders did not know his own limits, and they seemed bottomless then, the weeks worth of wanting crying out for attention. Those very words were a promise that only Saul would be able to fulfill.

The moon was high by the time his master came, his grunting muffled with a hard bite on Anders' shoulder, leaving an impression of teeth behind. Anders collapsed bonelessly forwards, sweat matting his hair and sated beyond measure, into the circle of Saul's strong arms.

At a glance, it was hard to tell which of them owned the other. Still awed by the intensity of their coupling, Anders nuzzled into Saul's neck, not unlike a pet to its owner. Beneath his warm embrace, Saul kissed his brow, not minding the beads of sweat that gathered, hands brushing along Anders' lower back.

To own someone required giving something of yourself, to love and give of affection. There was no point in owning a pet otherwise. The thought came and went, and Anders did not think about it, and tried not to think about them and what they shared.

The night had grown cooler but it was still too warm for two people to sleep entangled in one another, but Anders did not want to move away, to lose that connection, skin on skin.

His mind was foggy and his eyes glazed. Their sconce had gone out by now, timed to run out of oil by midnight, and silvery moon shone through the window to land on them both.

What he was - revolutionary, rebel, mage, friend of the Champion, murderer of countless innocents - seemed far away and unlikely, his life before this bed, this night shattering into fragments. He wanted so much to forget the life he led with Justice, full of fear and anger and misplaced convictions, turning the world upside down on idealism.

He knew it had to come to open warfare, but Thedas only knew of two ways of treating mages. Even the Dalish were guided by their Keepers, reserving the position of power to those few with the gift of magic. The strong ruled over the weak, and unfortunately the mages who wanted to rule would ruin freedom for the rest of them.

Anders turned his head and attempted to burrow into Saul's collarbone. Not enough; it was never enough for him to sleep without the overwhelming guilt that dogged his steps. At least there were no more fade dreams, only the little sandboxes he built in his mind to wander in during his sleeping hours.

It would be so easy to get lost here, to hide in these arms until all those who remembered his name forgot about him altogether. The ones who looked to him for love, the ones who sought him for revenge, all of them kept away because Saul, his master, promised him safety.

But as he lain here, Anders realized he wanted distance from Justice more than anything.

"Should I keep you?" Saul said, as though to himself, voice rougher and huskier than usual, sending tingles to every inch of Anders' skin. "Eat out of my hand, sleep by my side, follow at my heels?"

Anders closed his eyes, his breathing already even and it was easy to pretend to be asleep; but he felt Saul smile against the top of his head.

It was not his choice. Perhaps it was safer this way.


	12. Gambit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: group NON-CON ahead.

Minrathous was without seasons, possessing only a never ending summer that varied in humidity and a sunrise that came later and later. The fruit trees in the orchard went through their cycles all the same, and Anders watched the strange teardrop shaped fruit in the atrium grow heavy as the weeks went by, their colour changing from green to dark purple.  
  
The entire villa was inundated with the sweet scent of honey and milk with cinnamon for a week while the fruit was picked and dried. It was one of the few things left to remind Anders of time passing.  
  
He could not have told Hawke, if his friend was to show up at the door now, why he stopped counting the days. When he was in solitary confinement he kept track easily enough by the changing of the guard. It should have been just as simple here, his days beginning with the sunrise and ending in his master's arms by moonlight. But there was no end to his sentence; little reason to think one week, two weeks, sixteen more and he was done.  
  
Either he found an opening and escaped on his own, which he did not, or Hawke would barge in without stealth, as he was wont to do, or he would not. If Sebastian came through the door, he would have his vengeance. If he did not, that Anders was a slave in Tevinter should be enough poetic justice for both of them.  
  
Out of love he accepted his role; Saul had wrought his chains with stronger stuff than leather and steel. _Mine,_ he whispered while they made love by moonlight, driving all thoughts aside.  
  
For a while he echoed Merrill's sentiment: nothing was certain anymore. Walking away from Kirkwall, he was lost, his paths diverging and each ending in darkness. Saul was at the end of this particular path and he sat in a patch of sun.  
  
He was certainty enough to cling to.  
  
Anders wore padding on his hands and knees now, to move around outside, the harness still wrapped around his limbs but no longer hindering his movements. It was warm enough that the walk from the bedroom to the atrium left him heated, but not so hot that simply sitting on his heels brought on prickly heat.  
  
Humidity had dropped until the air felt less like steam, and when he woke in the moring, his eyes were gritty. The seasons had changed without his notice.  
  
His past became a distant blur, and one by one the faces he retained in his dreams flickered and faded. Saul became everything, as he was everything, the face he saw in rapture and the smile he beheld on waking; the sun, the moon, the stars.  
  
Since their first night together there had been no more punishment, only little rewards; sweet fruit eaten out of his master's hand, an afternoon spent learning the lute, dark hands over his own showing him the proper pressure on the neck, listening for minute differences in pitch that he had never noticed before.  
  
"You'll never make a proper bard," Saul kissed his reddened fingertips. "But at least it doesn't sound embarrassing now."  
  
Anders laughed, and shocked himself with how strange and alien and forgotten the sound had become.  
  
He was growing stronger and healthier than he ever had been, or could possibly become, living in darktown. The few freckles on his hands he gained trekking up and down the Wounded Coast disappeared, his hair grew long and silky, and he wore it loosely at home hanging past his shoulders. The little bumps on his nails from malnutrition had filled out as well, and Mira buffed them until they reflected as glass every morning.  
  
There were no mirrors here for decoration, and he had an inkling that one was kept away from him until the proper time. Anders had once been vain, not as much as the magisters he had seen, perhaps; Kirkwall and Justice had worn him down until he was much too thin, inside and out.  
  
Slowly he began to understand why other slaves envied him. Saul, not being a mage, had no need to gut a slave on the open streets to fuel his spells. And unlike a magister, he led a stable life. Some slaves changed hands thrice in a year, their masters dying in duels or in the war with the Qunari.  
  
In Minrathous, either one was a magister, an established slaver like Saul, or a slave. If not one of these three then an Imperial citizen lived no better than a refugee in darktown, not even knowing when his next meal would come.  
  
Anders' life was stable because Saul had somehow carved a trade out of the Imperium where his services were needed by the ruling elite. Life was precarious here as it was everywhere else in Thedas, but Saul did not participate in the exclusive, dangerous power games practiced by mages. As he had already told Anders, he was an acquaintance to all, but friend of no one.  
  
They were too busy fighting amongst one another to worry about a man who had no magic at all.  
  
Save for the daily visits from slaves who came to pay their monthly tribute, Anders sat in on all of Saul's meetings. Mira stayed close while Saul was busy elsewhere, but these short visits rarely lasted for more than minutes.  
  
It had been an hour since he stepped out today. Anders fidgeted anxiously, making out the edge of a thick strap of leather through the thin sheet with his fingertips. This morning they were woken before dawn, and fear crept up his limbs icy cold to bring shivers until Saul wrapped his arms around him and murmured in his ear.  
  
 _You're safe, remember?_ And Anders believed him.  
  
Now he was alone and it was hard to keep his heart from racing, imagining every scenario that could have gone wrong for his master. His fears were unfounded, fortunately, as he heard the footsteps, steady and unmistakable rounding the corner and around the screen. Mira trailed him, head bowed and steps tentative, chewing her lip.  
  
Saul studied him, sitting on their high bed, taking in the relief that lit in Anders' eyes as they locked with one another, and he smiled.  
  
"I have to make a visit to the bath house. I may be gone for the whole day. It's not," Saul paused, rubbing his chin, considering. "Not exactly pleasant. You may choose to stay."  
  
They had moved through the streets while one magister dueled another, watched as a lone young elvhen woman was yanked out of the street for a blood ritual, targeted for the crime of being without her master to protect her. For Saul to call something _unpleasant_ it had to be worse than that, or specifically, worse for Anders.  
  
The smart thing to do would have been to accept the offer and allow Mira to bind him up with the rope she held in her hands and spend the afternoon hung up in the alcove.  
  
Anders had not been separated from Saul for long since he was made a pet, even their baths were taken together now, that being apart from him for an entire day was difficult to contemplate. The loss of his master would be unbearable. The hour before dawn as he watched the sun rise, its light painting their bedroom with gold, was full of worry. Though they were separated by little more than two stone walls.  
  
"I want to go with you," he blurted.  
  
Mira's shoulders visibly fell, and her eyes filled with fear. A choice was never given; a choice was an illusion whenever Saul presented it. But Mira was a part of it this time, and Anders had gone against her wish to save him.  
  
Then he saw the approving smile that Saul gave him and whatever challenges that might come seemed unimportant.  
  
"It will be all right, Mira. He'll be fine," and Mira did not appear to buy his reassuring smile.  
  
The public baths were housed in a large stone building next to an open forum, near the center of the city. Up close, it was especially impressive, with domed roofs rising twice the height of a hightown mansion and the typical Tevinter style pillars propping up a temple-like entrance.  
  
Mosaic covered the floors, the edges of each tessera barely perceptible under his hands, edges sanded down first by hand then by years of thoroughfare. The walls were covered in metal reliefs, not unlike the bronze decoration on the walls of the Gallows in Kirkwall, but here they were curlicues and shapes with no discernible image.  
  
They paid the entrance fee, numbered in coppers, and passed through an open atrium into a room where a number of men were dressing and undressing. There were slaves here as well, working on the numerous buckles and straps that held a Tevinter magister's robe together. Anders vaguely recalled his. They were complicated, but he was able to dress himself alone. These mages were just overly spoiled.  
  
Saul was more comfortable with his nudity than anyone else here, his steps wide and sure while others moved cautiously as if cold, or insecure without their enchanted clothing. Anders scurried to keep up, though he had by now mastered the art of moving on all fours with grace. From the open archway in front of him he thought he heard crying, followed by quiet, muffled sobbing.  
  
Whatever else he heard, there was definitely the unmistakable sound of sex, of skin hitting skin in a steady rhythm, and there was more than one couple. Occasionally he heard laughter, the clanging of vessels, cups being filled with wine.  
  
"Whatever you do, don't try to run. With any luck you won't feel the need," Saul stared at the open archway. "You can choose to enjoy it. They will not care either way."  
  
It was sunny where they stood from numerous skylights, bright enough for them to squint, making the scene in the next room darker and harder to make out.  
  
The warning would have spooked him if he did not feel so safe by his master's side.  
  
Anders could feel nervous energy in the set of Saul's shoulders and the way the leash was pulled on, as though he was making sure Anders was still at the end of it.  
  
 _Unpleasant._ Anders crawled forwards through the doorway, concentrating on the back of his master's legs while the sound and the smell of the room hit him full blast. Oddly, it was the scent of spring grass, fresh flowers, and the sound was mostly laughter.  
  
As his eyes adjusted, Anders saw the three slaves tied to their makeshift racks. They were simple shapes made up of bamboo sticks, bound at the corners with rope, not unlike the litter he was brought here on, but smaller, and one of the bars was set at the waist level of the slave instead of at his feet, presumably for better access. The four corners where the sticks met had ropes connected to them, tied to a chain suspended from the ceiling, the same way a coal brazier was hung. Each slave had his hands bound to the crossbar, while his legs straddled the sides, calves held to the bamboo with more rope.  
  
They were not taken roughly; an attendant stood by each man strapped to the racks, cleaning them in between each time someone came to use them, applying oil so they were never taken dry. A red haired elf with Dalish tattoos looked as though he enjoyed the bondage, so much so he moaned loudly around the cock in his mouth continuously. The other, a human blonde, seemed tired and ambivalent, nearly falling asleep in his rack, but still he tolerated his treatment.  
  
Anders found his attention drawn to the one crying slave. By the sound of his complaints he had been here too long, but how long was impossible to guess. If tears had flowed from his eyes at some point, they had since run dry, but he sobbed quietly anyway. He was exceptionally beautiful, with large eyes a dark wintergreen, jet black wavy hair, and flawless, hairless Elvhen skin.  
  
The man using his mouth was holding that dark hair back away from his face, twisting it into a knot and bracing himself with it as he thrust between pretty pink lips. A dismayed whine escaped as the man's rhythm wavered, then he pushed all the way in, ignoring the heaving and thrashing that came over the slave's back as his gag reflex took over.  
  
He sputtered and coughed, but the resistance made no difference. Cum dribbled down his chin and his cheeks grew red with the need to breathe, and still the man did not withdraw, until he had softened, ignoring the coughing fit that followed, turning away with nothing more than a soft pat to the slave's dark head.  
  
"Please, no more," the slave mumbled when the coughing subsided and he was no longer actively choking, and Anders followed his gaze to a bronze bench where three men were seated, one of which he recognized.  
  
The pale magister who tried to scare him into submission months ago tilted his eyebrows at them. Without his clothes, Darin was too thin; his ribs were visible beneath dark nipples, and he had a bump in his sternum that Anders remember having himself when he had little to eat, but his had filled out since his stay in Saul's home.  
  
Darin had picked a spot to one side of his slave to observe him, while he sipped his wine and touched himself with one pallid hand. His hair hung limp and wet behind his neck, bringing to mind long black snakes.  
  
The man pumping into the slave from behind never faltered once while the body beneath him coughed and gagged on another man's seed. Even now he was still lost in his own pleasure, and all the time the slave begged. _Please, master, I don't know what I've done wrong but I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, make him stop ..._  
  
Darin snapped his fingers, his expression flat and uncaring. The attendant wiped the slave's mouth with a moist towel, then dumped a bucket on the floor over the mess. The water ran down the gutters slanted probably for the purpose of bathing in times long past, but this was their sole use now, at least in this room that did not have a basin. It ran into a drain beneath a coal brazier hanging in the center of the room.  
  
Another man soon took the last one's place, fingers carding into the elf's dark hair to keep him still, pinching the sides of his jaw until he opened up to shove a cock down his throat.  
  
"There's better use for that mouth than begging, hmm?" Darin sneered.  
  
"What good is a broken slave, Darin?"  
  
Anders turned his attention to the dark voice that belonged to his master. Panting and moans and cries echoed off the brass walls, sending heat straight to his groin. He was always achingly hard, and now his cock twitched for attention, unable to rein in his need from watching the acts performed in front of him.   
  
That could be him, he reminded himself, it could still be him strapped to that rack instead of the unwilling slave.  
  
Would he be a _willing_ slave, then? Surprised at his own wording, and the need that intensified even as he imagined his body strapped down and taken over and over again, a string of anonymous men behind him, none would care to know his face, only using him before moving on to the hot baths with their base needs sated.  
  
Saul had threatened, with not so many words, that he was free to pass Anders off to whomever he wished. But in truth he never shared; and he never used another pleasure slave, either. They had a strangely monogamous relationship, all things considered.  
  
What might happen today was unprecedented, _you can choose to enjoy it,_ but his master would always approve. In the end he would be allowed back into those arms, safe and accepted.  
  
"Oh, I'm hosting a party tonight. I _can_ just put him on another rack, but he's so ... loud." Darin sipped from his cup, blatantly ignoring the pleading glances thrown his way. "Maybe I'll just leave him here and pick him up tomorrow. There's a duel I've been challenged to, and I could use some fresh blood."  
  
 _I hope you die in that duel,_ thought Anders. _I hope you get hit with walking bomb and blow up into a million chunks._ But if anyone could beat an uncompromising blood mage in a duel, it was probably another worse than him. Minrathous had ran for thousands of years on the blood of slaves, and if one magister was killed, there was another eager enough to take his place.  
  
"His ears are too pointy, and his eyes aren't dark enough. Sure looks like him, though. Florian is much prettier, of course."  
  
At the mention of the name Darin visibly bristled, his fine black eyebrows coming together reminding Anders of millipedes or something equally disgusting.  
  
"You've ignored my request, I assume?" Darin said quietly. To carry affection for a slave must have been a social stigma for a magister, at least in public. Love was apparently taboo in Tevinter.  
  
Powerful emotions were used against people everywhere, it seemed.  
  
"I haven't had time. This one here keeps me busy, and Florian doesn't live where I can take a pleasure slave," a hand placed between his shoulderblades touched Anders protectively, and a thumb rubbed down his spine with firm pressure.  
  
"Everyone's talking about the golden slave you keep. How many months has it been? Four? Five? Do you love him, Saul?" Darin sneered, and Anders heard the click in his mind as the trap was set. "Of course not. At least I hope not. Saul's precious little mage slave. _He takes that thing everywhere. I wonder if he'd take that thing to meet the archon!_ "  
  
With the mock Orlesian accent he flipped his hand in front of his chest as though he held a feathered fan.  
  
Saul was not offended at all, nor did he show any sign that he was bothered. "I'm surprised _they_ would talk about little old me. I'm hardly important."  
  
"Why don't you let your pet have a go with my slave? He's turning purple down there."  
  
Anders shifted, but his attire was hardly conducive to hiding his erection. It was hard because he was always hard, his master stroking him to attention every morning before leaving their bed. He had grown accustomed to the ache, allowing the lightheaded feeling that came with constant arousal carry him through the endless days like a drug.  
  
His nights were full of his master, who took him roughly, sometimes painfully, but he always slept pleasantly sore and sated, too exhausted for nightmares.  
  
"No. He's not the type," Saul's hand never left his back, fingers lingering behind his heart.  
  
"Not the type to top? Pity. I'd let him top if he was mine," Darin smiled down at Anders in a way that he probably thought of as seductive, but no matter how hard he tried, Anders could only think of him as creepy.  
  
The man behind the crying slave had finally arrived at a stuttering end, his last few thrusts so savage the slave screamed around the shaft of flesh in his mouth. He took a towel from the attendant and wiped himself off, not even giving the slave another look before walking away.  
  
"Not the type to top the unwilling," Saul sat biting his lower lip. "I don't think so, anyway."  
  
"Rubbish," Darin snorted, breaking his facade of the high-born magister with haughty and impeccable manners. "No mage slave will ever turn down power if you offer it to him. I think he's tired of crawling at your feet, personally."  
  
Saul did not answer. The grip on Anders' back tightened and relaxed again. His master was agitated, or annoyed, or angry. Anders wasn't sure which it was, but he knew that Saul was as bothered by the violation taking place in front of them as he was.  
  
"What do you want, Darin?" Saul's voice was level and calm, but Anders could feel his pulse in the webbing of his hand, too fast, through the connection between them shared with magic, a link of blood-flecked chalcedony. "This is the sixth slave this month you've been trying to break. So what do you want?"  
  
"You know what I want," Anders could see the whites around Darin's eyes, he had them opened so wide they might pop. Sometimes a mage used so much blood magic that he was nothing but demon. The scariest thing about Darin was that he was all human on the surface, no heat about him carrying the scent of fade smoke and decay.  
  
There was no way to tell whether it was a demon or a man behind those eyes, except when his life was threatened.  
  
"Do you seriously think that blackmailing Florian will make him love you?"  
  
"No, but this way he can't ignore me. It brought you out of hiding," Darin smiled, showing all his teeth. "How about this? If your slave agree to take his place until noon, you can have him. Consider it a gift."  
  
Anders stared down at the floor, suddenly lost in the turns and twists the tiles formed under his hands. He was never selfless to the point of taking punishment for another, though this slave was already at the edge of his tolerance and he certainly couldn't last through the day.  
  
"One minute you want him to fuck your slave, and now you want him to get on the punishment rack," Saul laughed, shallow and false, though Darin would not have known. "Which is it?"  
  
"Both. Either will prove that you're not in love with your little pet. And if you don't love him," Darin stared straight at Saul. "You should have no problem sharing him."  
  
From the conversations Anders had heard pass between them over the months, he gathered that they were friends, but their friendship was of the difficult kind where one constantly reminded the other of his shortcomings. Here, Darin was the more political-minded of the two of them, and he was reminding Saul to perform his duties in public, lest people talk.  
  
And by the sound of things, they were talking already. A magister was allowed his eccentricities; an Imperial citizen was watched closely for any sign of deviance. Saul's unwillingness to lend his pleasure slave out at parties showed a lack of depravity, and undue attachment to a mere slave.  
  
He followed the short tugging on his leash to kneel in front of his master. The look on his dark face was almost pensive, a small crease in between his eyebrows showing his hesitation. He was becoming more emotional as the months went by; parts of their disposition were blending together.  
  
"Do you want to use him, or would you rather take his place?" Saul said, cheek pressed to his so they could whisper to each other.  
  
It was up to him, though the choice was clear since the idea was suggested. He could never forgive himself if he left this slave here, unwilling and weeping as they violated him over and over again. There were two paths for a slave in Tevinter: bend or break. This one would break because his master did not teach him how to bend, only placed him in a situation he could neither deal with nor escape from.  
  
Anders was stronger than he was when Saul first brought him through the front gates and humiliated him in front of a crowd; he could withstand anything they chose to inflict on him, so long as -  
  
"Will you be here?" He whispered back.  
  
"Of course," Saul replied earnestly.  
  
With their eyes closed he touched his forehead to Anders', the veil between them thin as a breath, and if they were not being observed Saul might have kissed him. Anders could feel so much warmth there, tingling heat that fluttered in his chest.  
  
 _He loves me._  
  
"Then I will take his place," he surprised himself with how sure he sounded, agreeing to this public act without a doubt that it was the right thing - the only thing - he could have done.  
  
Saul's answering smile only strengthened that thought even more, "and I expected no less of you."  
  
"Hah," Darin huffed, sounding as though he expected much less. "A selfless mage. Well, what do you know. Explains why I'm on the senate and he's a slave though, doesn't it?"  
  
People who wanted power and got it were often also insane, from what Anders had seen. It was true in Ferelden during the blight, definitely true in Kirkwall with the Circle, and now he was seeing it in Tevinter. Anders knew it; Andraste had her wording wrong. She really meant that the demon possessed should never be allowed to rule over men.  
  
Fenris had one fact right. All magisters were evil because it took a special kind of mage to want to be involved in politics. The good ones died early, or remained researchers in the Minrathous Circle.   
  
At least he had Saul. Darin's slave had nothing, not even a master that cared about him. With a snap of the magister's fingers, the attendant untied his slave, and he fell to the floor without anyone to catch him. The instant he hit the hard tiled floor he curled in on himself, shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs, and as he cried, with mumbled words and a hoarse voice he thanked his master for letting him go.  
  
Anders tried to comfort him, his hands already glowing with healing magic as the restriction was lifted. But the boy flinched, a screech leaving the back of his throat the moment they touched. There really wasn't much he could heal; just a few bruises here and there on his hips and rope burn on his wrists. His wounds were not the visible kind.  
  
"Make that sound again and I'll have to find something else to shut you up," Darin hissed, unaffected by the show of pain. "Useless thing. I'm giving you away. Go rinse off so you'll at least look presentable enough to be a _gift_."  
  
The slave struggled to obey, but his hands barely had enough strength in them to support him, and he crumbled into a heap, not daring to let out a sound of pain.  
  
Saul crouched down and approached him with a large towel in his hands, showing it to him before helping him up with his own hands, not waiting for the attendants to come take him away. Anders read the shifting of moods, the moment Saul won his new slave's loyalty with one simple gesture.  
  
"What's your name, boy? And how old are you?" Saul wrapped the towel around the slave, covering his nudity. In a place such as this, it did not matter that he was naked, though he calmed the moment the fabric went over his shoulders.  
  
"My name is Turin, master. And I'm," Turin's eyes darted to one side, then he quickly looked down, hiding his face with his hair. "I'm eighteen, master."  
  
"There's no need to lie. I will not punish you for something you cannot change," Saul tucked a lock of dark hair behind a half-pointed ear for Turin, and Anders noticed immediately that he did not flinch at the touch.  
  
"...I'm sixteen, master."  
  
Anders felt the indignation rising in him like bile, and the thought that he had sat here on his heels while this boy was violated brought on rage he had long forgotten. Then Turin was prostrating himself on the floor again, his hands grasping the towel to his shoulders, touching his forehead to the hard tiles, sensing the anger that came not from Anders, but from Saul.  
  
"I hope you don't mind scrubbing pots for the next couple of years," Saul said finally, after a long pause.  
  
"Not at all, master. Thank you, master."  
  
Turin was quickly led away by some of the other slaves, with instructions to clothe him and to lead him out to their small retinue waiting outside.  
  
Darin sat sipping his wine, his expression unrepentant.  
  
"Not going to walk the little boy home?" He said, mockery loud and clear.  
  
Saul pursed his lips and did not answer. Even the best of friends had their limits, and theirs was an uneasy friendship before today. Even a slaver had his standards, Anders assumed.  
  
The rack stood empty before them, and the attendant waited expectantly. Anders was not afraid, though this used to figure large and looming in his nightmares. But in those dreams that left him screaming awake, the ones who took him against his will were templars.  
  
This was more than trading places with Turin, more than saving a child. It was his own admittance that the world had gone all very wrong and he was stuck in the center of it. All those words he had spoken, _I've never met a mage who wants to rule anything_ , were just that. Empty words.  
  
His master waved the attendant aside and wrapped the ropes around Anders' calves himself; firm, quick, and with a steady warm touch that calmed.  
  
Anders wrapped his fingers around his forearms, resting them on the crossbar, and Saul tied him to it, the rope going round and round while Anders stared out through the veil at his face. It was a chiseled face with a prominent nose, perfectly straight, and deceptively thin lips, a habit of purshing them while he worked, that felt soft and plump between his own. _Of course I'll be here_ , Saul could never have made him go through this on his own.  
  
Fingers pushed between his teeth and Anders opened his mouth to suck on them, tongue darting out to lick at their tips when they drew away, curling around them to coax them back in. The attendant behind him gently eased the ever present plug out of him, and applied oil to his entrance, his hands sure and practiced, his motions almost clinical in their precision. It was never their intention to hurt him, only to turn him into an instrument for pleasure.  
  
It was difficult to hate something that felt nothing at all. A system was as a thing of nature, and he was simply caught on the wrong side of it. Maybe if he had made it here as a free man, he would be outraged and yet helpless to change it.  
  
Or would he have been glad that mages managed to turn the tables on everyone else here in Tevinter? It was a much scarier thought than being strapped down and taken.  
  
Saul slipped his fingers out of Anders' mouth to little whimpers of protest. Wrapping them around his erection, he brought himself to full hardness.  
  
Hands came to rest on his hips and it was all the warning he had before he was breached, a gentle push that was nothing like the rough coupling he was accustomed to with Saul. His arse was pushed down, the man behind him now shorter than the attendant who prepared him, and Anders relaxed further to accommodate the change. A soft moan escaped him once the pace picked up, this man with his thick and short cock not taking his time at all, finding his release within minutes with shallow strokes. He was emptied; and filled again, someone with less finesse but more strength, the grip on his hips bruising and hard.  
  
He opened his mouth wide to gasp, to breathe, and instead found salty fluid touching the tip of his tongue as Saul held his shaft steady and prodded its head gently at his lips. Anders lapped at it eagerly, all the touching from down below did not compare to this, his master's cock, his master's taste. This was familiar, velvety skin wrapped over hardness, steely, sturdy, so wide it stretched the corners of his mouth. Between his legs his own erection bobbed for attention, and the man behind him grunted at the sudden tightness that came along to grasp.  
  
"Take your time," Saul's said from above, his hands resting on Anders' shoulders to softly caress. "As long as I'm here no one else will have your mouth."  
  
Pinpricks of heat reached Anders' ears, and it was a wonder that words - no, not only words, Saul's voice - could drive him to need. Experimentally, Anders moved his hips to speed up the rhythm, half expecting a reprimand, but the man behind him acquiesced and matched him thrust for thrust.  
  
They did not come to hurt him, nor to hate him. He was only a bit of release before a bath. _I'm just a hole to them,_ he thought hazily, and none of them knew or care to know who he was, what he had done, not even bothering to know if he was even attractive beneath the veil. Anders took comfort in that knowledge; they would not even remember this tomorrow, in the way that one would not remember a short walk through a corridor.  
  
None of them cared to make this last for his pleasure, because he, as a person, did not exist. Bony fingers on his hips, digits wide as sausages rubbing along his back, a tall man who had to pull him up higher by the waist to get a good angle, another short man to push him down again; he was a tool to be used and each of them used him without a thought.  
  
 _More,_ when one withdrew and the attendant carefully cleaned him, checking him for any injury, adding unneeded oil. _Harder_ when the next took him much too gently, causing Anders to buck his hips with impatience. He paid them in loud cries when they gave him what he wanted, pulling his mouth off Saul's member to curse if one just happened to hit just the right spot.  
  
His master did not mind. He stroked Anders under his chin, massaged his shoulders and his neck where it was sore. His master. His teacher. His lover.  
  
Even this was a lesson in disguise. Anders was not truly given a choice. If not today, then it might have happened tomorrow, and the only reason why it did not happen last week was because Saul did not think him ready then. And even now it was a surprise of sorts, the rules of the game not related to him until the very last minute. Saul knew exactly how things would play out, with Anders on a rack and not just the one random man in Minrathous he was threatened with on that very first day out of the gates.  
  
He was certain they were lining up for him now, barely time for a wipe down before another cock was pushed inside of him. Some were fast, some were slow, and not a one of them fucked him hard enough.  
  
The room was getting crowded. There were more conversations going on at once, more slaves coming in with their glass decanters of wine, the day growing closer to noon drawing people to the cold baths.  
  
His knees slipped on the bamboo slats, only precariously staying level on them, the rope acting as security in case he lost his footing. Oil and cum dribbled down the inside of his thighs, and it was a difficult balance between staying relaxed enough to keep everything pain-free and falling into the lines of the ropes that bound him. In the end, he slipped, resting his cheek on his crossed arms and nesting in the cocoon of ropes as they fucked him, his back falling naturally into an arch, giving everyone deeper access.  
  
Still, they did not care whether he was an active participant in their games. In between his master and the nameless men he floated, suspended and anchored, always close to the edge, his release remaining just out of reach, his cries of _harder_ often led to the men finishing faster, leaving him hanging empty and moving his hips to beg for more.  
  
They did not feel real; it could have been a toy held by someone he knew instead of strangers. He never saw them, only felt them touching him, filling him, never a face to match to the sensations.  
  
His master slipped his hands under the veil suddenly, grabbing him by the hair behind his ears and pushed his cock all the way in. With practiced ease Anders relaxed and swallowed it down. His muscles fluttered around it, breathing deep through his nose while Saul fucked his throat with shallow movements.  
  
Always on the edge of his endurance, as much as he could take.  
  
Another came inside him, replaced by someone bigger this time, but he barely noticed. His master had moved back a little, and Anders wrapped his lips over the head, running the flat of his tongue under the hard ridge. Soft gasping and the stilling of his master's hips encouraged him, and he switched to a tight sucking with the little strength he had left.  
  
"It's noon," and Anders let out a little hum, sounding disappointed. Saul laughed above him, a soft chuckle that made Anders want to laugh along. "They're not enough for you, are they?"  
  
Anders looked up blearily, trying to think up an answer. His master had made him beg before, teasing Anders until he had no options left but let his mouth run wild, but they were in their bedroom then.  
  
Now they were out in public, and he naturally wanted to rebuke those words, not wanting to admit it in front of an audience but he had no pride, no shame left to hinder his begging. Those feelings were from a past he needed no longer. He had Saul, and Saul would have him feel no shame.  
  
Then he looked beyond his master and saw Darin, his lips pursing with disapproval, the bronze cup in his hand tipping from left to right and back again.   
  
"No, they're not you, master. I want you to fuck me," Anders said all in one breath, before courage left him. Darin scowled at his words and he felt nearly giddy. "Master."  
  
"My sweet slave," Anders shivered; only Saul could pronounce slave the same way he would have said love. Saul bent down, moving his mouth down close over the veil, near his ear. His hands smoothed over Anders' back, wiping off sweat and oil. "The second I move away, Darin will take my place. Are you aware of that?"  
  
And he would not be gentle. Darin would be unpleasant, he would make it hurt, push so hard and unforgiving into his throat that there would be no room to breathe, sure to leave him heaving afterwards.  
  
Mira did not bring him his breakfast this morning. This must have been the reason.  
  
"Yes, master."  
  
More than the months of sleeping in his bed, waking in the night to nuzzle closer, this was his final act of submission. It was easy to ignore the men who took his arse, even as each tightening of his muscles now sent cum dribbling down his thighs. Anders did not even know who they were, not able to recognize them if he were to stroll down the streets again, and they would probably not remember him. But Darin - Darin would sear this into his soul if he had to draw blood to do it.  
  
Saul moved out of sight to a spot behind him. As predicted, Darin rose from the bench without wasting a second, stroking himself to hardness right next to Anders' mouth. The veil separated them, the thin fabric catching on white fingertips on each upstroke.  
  
"He's been such a miser with that face of yours. I wonder if you are that handsome. Or maybe you're so ugly he has to hide it," Darin was thin down to his cock, and the head flared out disproportionately wide, purple and angry with blood. His eyebrows went up as he snorted, "but rules are rules."  
  
Darin grabbed the top of the veil where it was a little pointed from the hair braided underneath, pushing Anders down hard, forcing his cock between already swollen lips. Anders bucked as the flared head hit the back of his throat and kept going, no regard at all for his comfort or even his breathing, making his mouth a thing, a hole, nothing more than a place to slide a cock.  
  
Tears came to his eyes immediately, a body's natural reaction in the face of pain and fear. His fingertips dug into his forearms under bands of rope, and he must have made that sound he heard from Turin, a high pitched whine followed by a quiet sob, but even this torment was applied with skill. Darin pulled away just before he blacked out, giving Anders enough time to breathe before resuming the assault.  
  
Anders heaved, and he was glad he had nothing for breakfast. Familiar girth breached the tight muscles of his arse, smooth hands cupped the edges of his hips, thumbs dug in to push his ropes up on the first hard thrust. He opened his mouth to scream, his master still managed to make that entrance a shock, taking advantage of his harness and the bead strapped to his body for the first time today.  
  
Only his master knew how to bring him release in this state. His body was pushed forward on every thrust bringing Darin in deeper, and there was no point struggling to breathe. Either he was allowed to, or he wasn't. He was full of both men, brutal and out of sync, and between the slapping of Saul's pelvis on his arse and the slide of Darin down his throat, the want of more and faster and harder was finally fulfilled.  
  
With his eyes rolling to the back of his head he shuddered, each part of his body tightened until Darin moaned in surprise above him and shot heat, bitter and liquid to burn its way down his throat tasting of iron mingled with blood as his lip was split on one corner, and his top palate raw and stinging from the gritty slide.  
  
But they were faraway sensations, distant thunder to the storm that rage low in his belly, wrenching cry after cry from him, the sound hoarse and raw from his ravaged mouth. Darin stepped away as though disgusted, but Anders did not care, his world focused always on his master, behind him, in front of him, inside him, watching - it did not matter how as long as he was here.  
  
He heard low grunting behind him, his master coming even as he called out _more, please, more_ , his chest curling over Anders' back, hands moving down his calves to pull the knots out, freeing his legs. When he fell, strong dark arms caught him, turning him over to cradle him, a thick and muscular forearm resting behind his knees. Anders tried to move his hand up to touch that face, to push away hair matted to the sides with sweat, but he had no strength.  
  
The bath house _was_ unpleasant for a slave. But it was also worth the torment, if only for this comforting afterwards.  
  
He wanted his master to kiss him, but that was outside social protocol, and he would want to wash Darin's taste out of his mouth - blood magic and the inside of pride demons, a hint of oily smoke and rot - before he ate anything, let alone kiss anyone.   
  
"Save all that slobbery affection for the bedroom, will you?"  
  
Anders turned to look, but Darin was gone. He probably went beyond the wall of steam, though why anyone would want a hot bath on a hot day was beyond him.  
  
Maybe Darin was cold all the time. The fade was icy cold, and spirits never understood the need for warmth nor did they know how to replicate it.  
  
"He's not all that bad," Saul said later, washing the fluids off Anders with buckets of warm water and covering him finally with a white towel. "It's the insanity of this city. It gets to everyone."  
  
 _Except you,_ Anders wanted to say, but his throat was too sore for him to get beyond an agreeable hum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just cleaning up and catching up.


	13. Revelations

Saul took one look at the litter Anders was brought in and cursed under his breath; he had forgotten one detail in his plan. In his weakened state Anders would not be able to hold himself up, and the open canopy that displayed him made it quite inappropriate for where they were heading.

They sat together on the steps to the bath house and waited together for the slaves to bring another transport.

Anders clung to Saul as he had always been allowed to do when he was exhausted, sitting across his lap with his arms linked behind his neck, his forehead resting on the sharp edge of a collarbone. A slave stood over them, holding a shade of canvas.

He must have fallen asleep, because the next time he opened his eyes Anders was lying on his side in a covered litter, curled over a ball of rough cotton blankets laid over slats of bamboo. His harness was still tied to him, comforting coolness on his skin soothing the bruises as the moisture in the natural fibers evaporated in a hot, dry Tevinter autumn afternoon.

He wondered, briefly, of where they were going, if not home. Through a gap in the canvas he saw his master walking by the side of the litter, never one to indulge in the practice of being carried around himself, wiping at his brow with a handkerchief.

The streets they were walking through were strangely quiet, or at least more so than the avenues near the forum and the markets, where the streets were full of magisters and their slaves. He watched as Saul took a few coins out of his purse, tossing it to a few street urchins, their sun-browned hands digging in the dirt, thin limbs jousting one another to vie for the copper bits.

Anders had seen alienages before. Growing up in the Circle, he never understood the prejudice against elves that plagued most Fereldens, and during his escapes there was always a family willing to shelter him from the templars. In Amaranthine he hid in the alienage for nearly a month before they found him, and there was the same feeling here; small crowded homes, with straw stuffed into the holes in the walls, children running bare feet through the muck in the streets, air thick with the smell of decay - no, neglect.

He was months into his stay in Minrathous and this was the first time Anders had seen such poverty. There were, of course, always a sharp dividing line between the rich and the poor, chiefly between the master and slave. Still, the slaves did not starve, and if one was lucky enough to end up in Saul's household, treated rather well.

Saul had always traded love for loyalty, and he was correct in thinking that it was much more effective than fear.

The day would come that Anders would have to leave. It might come in the form of a rescue, or capture if it was Sebastian and not Hawke who came for him, but he knew this life they led wasn't forever. He was beginning to think of Saul's bed as their bed and Saul's home as their home. It was dangerous, it was foolish, but it had become the only way for him to be.

It was easy to forget that in the center of the city where normality was skewed. This was a sharp reminder.

"You need more rest than that," Saul held the side curtain open.

They were definitely in an alienage. A painted vhenadahl stood behind him, limbs stretching up and over the mud bricks of the squat houses. Here too, there were no real windows or doors, only curtains hanging over entryways. A child sitting on the ledge of a second story window stared down at their retinue, dangling her legs, her feet covered in mud.

Anders muttered his thanks, then he coughed violently, bringing up a shock of pain.

"Healing will have to wait until we get home, unfortunately." Saul ducked beneath the curtain and patted Anders on the back, "these people will not be happy with me if they know I brought a mage along. You're not a magister but they'll hate you all the same."

Anders leaned over and kissed him just to the side of his mouth, and Saul surprised him by turning for their lips to meet. A hand behind his neck prevented him from moving away, but Anders could still taste Darin and he winced at the contact.

"Slave," _love_ , "if I ask you to do anything at all, it's not going to stop me from wanting you if you obey."

He attacked doubt with affection the way Anders had attacked infections with magic, at the source. They kissed, afternoon sunlight lining the edges of the curtain with patches of gold. Anders thought they should have waited until they were home, but Saul always treated his emotional state as if it was first priority.

His heart was safe with Saul.

"It's no wonder that people talk, the way you two carry on."

Anders tried to look behind his master, but all he saw was a figure clad in a sandy coloured cloak, pointy chin visible beneath a low cowl, the face shadowed. The low, soft way the words were spoken made it difficult to tell if it was a man or a woman beneath the cowl.

"That's why I have you to keep track of just who is talking about me, isn't it?" Saul smirked, one hand still entwined in the fabric of a gold and black veil.

"Everyone, at this rate." The voice was definitely male, with the haughty inflections that reminded Anders of Darin. He handed Saul a bundle; clothes made of undyed cotton, a faded green cloak, and a pair of simple leather sandals. "Unless my intel is all wrong, he'll be needing this."

It felt strange to be covered again. The homespun fabric was rough and scratchy on his skin, chafing at the small cuts and rope burns he gained this morning. Standing was challenging; not only had he been crawling on all fours for months, he was fatigued and hungry, though he had not noticed the hunger until now.

Saul half carried and half helped him through the rough brick opening of a house. Unintentional sky lights had sun streaming down in columns, illuminating the bare walls and dingy counters, rough wooden furniture that gave more splinters than comfort. It was typical of an alienage home; there was a fire in the hearth and the smell of fresh baked bread permeated everything.

Their mysterious cloaked host pushed the cowl off his head and shook out his hair.

Turin, the comely youth they met this morning, was homely compared to this ethereal beauty. Anders could see the likeness in his almond shaped eyes and pale skin, but that was where the similarities ended. His eyes were dark grey, nearly black, with the depth of obsidian, and his hair jet black, shining indigo blue where it caught the sun. He seemed to glow; plump lips, fine dark eyebrows, the soft contours of his high cheekbones sitting primly in a slightly elongated, heart-shaped face.

Anders could make out hints of Elvhen ancestry, but this man - Florian, he was certain of that now - had perfectly rounded human ears. There wasn't even a hint of stubble on his chin, no shadow at all on his jaw or above his lips.

He had always guessed that Florian would be very attractive, if he could induce love in someone as seemingly heartless as Darin. But this - this was just unfair.

"You came from the bath house, or so I've heard," Florian even had a voice like heavy velvet drapes in a strong breeze. "You can have a nap in the room upstairs. There's food too, but my house, my rules - shut up, Saul - you'll eat out of a plate like a regular human being and keep your clothes on, understand?"

Anders stared, horrified at the tone of voice directed at his master, but Saul was laughing heartily. "I really don't know why he's so adamant on getting you back. You're liable to kill Darin in his sleep."

"And he'd _like_ it, the sick bastard," Florian was shooing them both towards a set of surprisingly sturdy brick stairs. "Feed him and put him to bed. Go on."

There was only one room at the top of the stairs, behind a curtain. It was built like a hayloft, the wooden wall nothing but slats haphazardly nailed together. A small wooden bed with a mattress filled with straw was the main piece of furniture, with a squat table sitting next to it, holding a clay dish with a few slices of bread, some hard cheese, and a plate filled with oil and vinegar.

Saul sat Anders in his lap, feeding him half the food, soothing the pain of swallowing with soft kisses on his temples. His fingers worked blond hair out of thin braids, most of the water from the baths having evaporated, setting the strands into tight curls.

He did not leave until Anders was apparently asleep on the small bed. "I'll only be downstairs," he whispered, before disappearing behind the curtain that separated room from stairs.

Anders was left alone for once in his months of captivity. His master was not far, surely, but there was also no place for his rogue guards to hide. A high window was made by leaving out a few rows of bricks on the outside wall, letting in enough light to banish shadowy corners.

He was not bound, his collar was covered, and the clothes were rough and unremarkable. He had no idea where he was, but alienages were usually in the poorer part of town, and the chances of him being dragged back to Saul by a magister was slimmer than when they were in the government district.

The window was reachable if he stood on his tiptoes on the bed, and the opening was tiny, but he had squeezed through smaller spaces. It wasn't impossible by any means.

He had left Karl in the Ferelden Circle, and he was in love then, though he did not name it at the time. Now Anders stared at the open window and he could not move. The very idea of being outside without his master terrified him as nothing else ever had. This wasn't the fear of losing someone. It was closer to losing a part of himself, and he could not have left his heart behind still beating as he could have lived without Saul.

Beyond the curtain he could hear them speaking in hushed tones. Anders tried to hear them better, but the heavy curtain absorbed more sound than a wooden door. Gingerly he crawled off the bed, and the floor took his weight without a creak.

Later he wondered if Florian knew he moved. Much later, he was certain that he knew. As far as Anders was concerned, he was silent all the way from the bed to the curtain, but Florian had Elvhen hearing on his side.

"...three hundred and fifty sovereigns," came Florian's soft velvet tone.

"Shit. The highest offer we've had is four fifty. I'll need to at least double that."

Saul sounded emotional, or at least highly annoyed. That was new. Anders carefully pulled the curtain open a fraction of an inch and peeked through the gap. The two men sat so close to one another their knees touched, heads leaning in to keep their voices low.

He felt the acid at his throat as his stomach clenched, the sight bringing with it a bout of inexplicable jealousy. Anders slept in Saul's bed and he was a treasured slave, but Florian was his equal.

 _Mine_. But he had no right, no choice, no place.

"He might not even be the right mage, you know. There's news out of the Anderfels of a sighting of both of them."

"It's a decoy. It has to be," Saul pursed his lips in that disapproving way that gave him the little wrinkles. "But as a precaution I've already sent Sarra after them."

"She's dead. They're all dead, by the way," Florian said. Saul cursed, smoothing a hand down over his face. "I got the news yesterday. The whole group's been slaughtered outside of Hossberg in a holding cave."

"Fuck," Saul cussed under his breath over his steepled fingers. "Then it is a decoy. The whole reason I heard about it at all is because they needed to lure her out. With any luck I'll have bounty hunters at my door in a week or less."

"Then there's Naos," Florian continued.

"Just give me the bad news."

"Tranquil. Or at least I think he is. Follows commands without question, speaks in a monotone, wonders where his master is. I told him that she's dead, and he just," Florian sighed. "Well, he just shut down."

"Did you see a chantry brand?"

"No," Florian said quickly. "But he's definitely not in there anymore."

"So, we have a Prince, the Chantry, and an army of bounty hunters all looking for him. Short of getting him a double and hiding him in the basement, I'm out of ideas."

"He clouds your judgement. Get rid of him," Florian leaned over one rough wood arm of his chair, elegant chin jutting over his fingers in a pose that was so reminiscent of Darin that it sent chills down Anders' spine.

His fingertips dug into the holes in the wood boards where he sat, trying hard not to shake. If they were talking about him, then they both knew who he was.

They knew what he had done.

"No," came Saul's gruff reply.

"You may not have a choice. The Imperium can't afford to war with the Free Marches and the Qunari at the same time."

"Then we'll leave," Saul looked away. When he did not believe his own words he had a tendency of not meeting your eyes. "There are places in Rivain where a mage can live free without becoming a magister."

"Don't be daft. What about your household full of slaves? Your hundreds of tributes waiting for their contracts to end? You leave and they'll belong to the Imperium forever. Go ahead, sacrifice yourself," Florian's tone was harsh but his reproving glare was wistful. "But I know you'll never do it. You're not one to sacrifice other people for your selfish whims."

"Maybe you're right," Saul said, and all that certainty Anders so used to was simply not there. "Maybe he's not even the right mage. He certainly isn't living up to my expectations of an unrepentant terrorist."

Florian hissed with venom, showing the mannerisms he picked up from Darin. "You did not undermine the system for twenty years to fall in love with a rebel mage. He's magi. He's the enemy. Sell him or turn him in. You're under enough scrutiny as is. He has too many problems for you to protect him."

Seconds ticked by without words, filled with anxiety. Anders waited for that denial, waited for Saul to spit out that he was only a pet, nothing more. Bunching his hands into fists by his sides he waited, but the silence dragged on.

"His problems are my problems," Saul admitted with a note of resignation.

 _He loves me,_ it wasn't just wishful thinking on his part, and for a moment he thought his heart would burst. Then the next words from Florian brought him down to earth so hard he nearly shattered.

"Then sell him to someone powerful enough to keep him safe. You certainly can't. Any high ranking magister can use a healing slave in their household, and six hundred isn't that steep considering the competition to find one. The rest of us rely on you, Saul."

After months of stability, it seemed his past had finally caught up with him. Anders wrapped his arms around his knees and bowed his head, but still the sun illuminated everything here, no place left to hide, nowhere to run.

He hadn't thought of escaping for a long time; he was never given a chance, never alone. But this was his escape, in a way, living lavishly in a villa in Tevinter, sleeping next to a man who gave him no choice but to fall in love with him.

Anders gathered his strength and stared up at the window again. He did not want to be a burden. If his existence would threaten so many people, and he was in danger of ruining another life, maybe it was time to turn himself in.

There was every reason to leave; if he loved Saul then he should leave to protect him, and if he did not, then there would have been no reason to stay.

The bed creaked beneath his feet; he held the straps of the sandals in his teeth and felt with his fingers for any sharp bits hanging outside the window. He was tired, but a warden was expected to go on for days without sleep or food in the deep roads and keep moving. He had been pampered of late, but he had never forgotten how to climb out of a high window.

"It's a thirty-feet drop from here to the ground, and if you survive that," Florian said behind the curtain - his steps so light Anders did not hear him all the way up those stairs - sounding remarkably unimpressed. "You'll probably make enough noise to bring the guard down on us."

Anders let go of the window ledge quickly, his feet touching down softly on the bed, "I, um, just wanted to look outside."

"With your sandals?" Florian ducked through the curtain.

He could not have seen the evidence, Anders having dropped the sandals the moment he was discovered, but as Florian said this Anders immediately looked guilty.

"You'd make a terrible, terrible bard. Probably a even worse magister. Did he even tell you why you're here?"

Anders shook his head. Saul took him everywhere, but Florian was obviously talking about something else.

"Saul does that - he buys slaves and the first thing he does is to make sure they forget how to speak. It's a skill you'll pick up again, as you can see," Florian spread his hands, a gesture that pointed to himself. "Darinius happens to love the way I talk. So I guess it depends on who you end up with, hmm? And don't worry, Saul's not going to sell you to Darinius. He can't afford you anyway."

"Where is ... my master?" Anders said, filled with the overwhelming compulsion to know where Saul was. He could always find out what Florian was rambling about later.

"Under the window. In case I didn't get up here in time and you decided to jump," Florian shrugged. "So, what have you heard?"

"I -"

"I know you were listening. I may not look like an elf, but I inherited the sensitive hearing without the pointy ears."

There were too many things he wanted to ask, and Florian sounded as though he was more than willing to share. Anders started with, "there's a bounty on my head?"

"From the Prince of Starkhaven. And now that I've had a good look at you, I don't know if we should worry about that so much. You look _nothing_ like your wanted posters."

Anders took the sheet of paper from Florian and glanced at it quickly; it was a likeness of him, though he had forgotten ever looking anything like it. The face was that of a tired, worn out, angry man. He had heavy darkness under his eyes, stubble thick enough to be a beard, and scraggly blond hair. He was thinner then, his bones sharp over hollow cheeks.

It wasn't him. It looked disturbingly like what he remembered of Kristoff when they first met. This was the face of Justice possessing a dead man.

"Dangerous maleficar ... wanted for the crime of terrorism, inciting rebellion, the murder of Grand Cleric Elthina," Anders kept reading, and the list went on, counting the deaths of the knight commander, numerous templars, Circle mages, and 'countless civilians' as if he felled them by his very hand.

"And from that look in your eyes, it must be true. You think you're responsible for all that, anyway," a knife appeared in Florian's hand, and he flipped it over his perfect fingers that were not marred by even one single scar.

The blade moved so fast it became a blur. It quickly vanished, then appeared right front of Anders' throat, Florian's pale hand holding it perfectly still.

"You'll sell him within the week or he dies now," and it was still a soft voice, still a sweet voice. But Florian was precise, cold-blooded. To survive in Darin's household for five years, to play a magister's heart like a lute, he had to be more than he seemed.

"Picked up some bad habits from your old master, I see," Saul said.

"Because of this mage, right here," the tip of the blade sliced into Anders' neck, so sharp he barely felt the cut until a single hot drop of blood ran over suddenly cold, clammy skin. "Even if we overthrow the senate, the rest of Thedas is going to fall to magic and all our work will be for naught. Why shouldn't I just kill him?"

"Mira begged me not to take him to the bath house this morning," Saul said.

Florian's eyes flared wide for a second, and narrowed again, "you're lying."

"I don't lie. And he made her laugh the first day he arrived."

Anders swallowed, his throat feeling unbearably dry and pained, and the blade dug in a little deeper and Florian made no move to spare him.

"Get rid of him this week. You _know_ he's a danger to us all," the point of the knife withdrew, but it was still too close. Anders dared not breathe.

"You have my word."

Saul was next to him the moment the knife was snatched away, and Anders did not fall so much as crash into his arms. Florian made a sound of disgust, and quickly stomped down the stairs.

"You knew," Anders stuttered, and tears of relief or panic, he could not fathom which, streamed down his cheeks. "You know who I am. You've known all along."

Saul had his doubts; the stories of the rebellion in Kirkwall and the description of the mage that led it was too far removed from the mouthy, scrawny blond man he saw in the slave market.

They had been tracking him well before the destruction of the chantry and the beginning of the ongoing disaster. Too many mages had arrived in Tevinter from Kirkwall in the past six years, and all their stories converged on one blond mage wearing feathers on his pauldrons. The tales seemed not of one man but of many; he killed templars on sight, he was a selfless healer who lived in darktown, he was a warden, he was an abomination.

He had not quite turned out the way Saul expected him to be, a broken young man with no real desire to live, staring out with dead eyes when he was left alone. But there were moments of clarity in between the blanks, and humour that only increased as Saul taught him how to live in the moment.

Saul knew who he was, but he truly did not know until today that all of those stories were true. Out loud, he only said, "yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Anders asked, after a fresh downpour of tears. Underneath the reaffirmed affection and acceptance, he felt betrayed.

"Who you were was tearing you apart," Saul wiped at his eyes and stared down into him, inside him as though he could read every thought, and there was no doubt in that gaze. "The faces you wore when you thought you were alone ... there's a lot you regret. I decided to give you a blank slate. A new life."

And he was happy. It was nice to not live in fear, startling at every sound, to put his decisions in someone else's hands. In the end it turned out all to be an illusion, more time borrowed. The danger was still there; they had only both ignored it.

Still, it was a lovely way to pass the time until the inevitable end of their affair. Anders mulled over another question, one he had wanted to ask for a long time.

"Who are you?"

"I ..." Saul began to speak, then he laughed, chuckling into a closed fist. "I'm just an Imperial citizen with ambitions above his station, or so they say. You've followed me for months. There's nothing you don't already know."

"I'm with you except when you meet with the slaves," he was beginning to put two and two together. Comparing Saul to another person who seemed to do nothing but meet with people all day behind closed doors, he hazarded a guess, "you maintain a spy network."

"No," Saul explained, and Anders saw it as the most evasive answer possible there was. The last time he heard something equally slippery it was from a chantry sister who sent Hawke off to escort a saarebas to 'freedom.' "Every slave in Tevinter is required to pay tribute to his former master. The law requires one day a year. I set my terms differently and ask them to make a short visit - one hour a month. Just a social call."

"And you pay them?" Anders asked.

"No. Slaves have no right to ownership. If I pay them, the money will belong to their current masters."

"But if they are in need of money, they'll just magically _have_ money?"

"And I have nothing to do with magic, naturally, since I'm not a mage."

"Just how long have you been," his curiosity piqued, Anders had to ask. That he would probably end up paying his tribute every month made him hopeful. "Um, _taking tributes?_ "

"Twenty-three years now. Since," Saul took a deep breath, as though he wasn't sure if there was any reason to divulge the next bit of information. "Since I was freed."

"You were a slave?" Anders could not say that he was surprised, having had his suspicions, watching Saul do the work that magisters had slaves done for them.

There were slaves running the household, tending the orchard and brewing wine, making sure meals were served throughout the day and the rooms kept meticulously clean, but Anders was the only one he kept close at hand.

"It's not important," Saul was eager to change the subject. There was a second where he looked away entirely, avoiding Anders' questing gaze, and he caught a hint of embarrassment. "But you know why I have to let you go."

"I understand," Anders leaned into those arms that he had become so familiar with, his frequent waking rarely bothering his sleep any more. "I know what it's like to be a part of something bigger. I've made my share of sacrifices."

That neither of them _wanted_ this to end was a selfish notion that could only end in ruin. Anders understood, but that did not mean he wasn't already planning on escaping, either before or soon after he gained a new master.

From where he sat it seemed impossible that he could ever bow to anyone else; and he could not bear becoming an unloved object in some high ranking magister's home.

Saul was right; he wanted to forget the monster he had become. But this was a kind of magic only Saul could weave. They belonged to each other.

"I'll find you someone nice," Saul said. "Someone rich and handsome, with power enough to raise an army to rival Starkhaven's. He'll keep you safe. And you'll forget all about me in the space of a month."

Anders was trained to own up to his emotions, to feel and follow the strands of thought that led to tears or laughter, and now he could not stop his tears. The ache in his heart would not abate no matter how many sweet kisses were pressed to his cheeks; he was missing Saul already, years of loneliness followed by this possessive, all consuming love, only to lose it all the moment it was confirmed - the second his tears paused, the cold emptiness of loss that crept behind his heart only set it off again.

There were no declarations of eternal, undying love, as he had imagined to take place in his first real affair outside of the Circle. That this man could look past the ugliness of all the things he had done was enough. He wished they had more time.

It was too much; it was too little. It was enough that he was loved at all; it should never have happened. He cried, they cried, he hiccuped in those arms. Anders raved one moment with anger and sobbed with regret the next.

Florian let the curtain drop behind him, leaving the house to the lovebirds, and winked at the guard hidden behind a bale of straw. They were good, but it took more than good to sneak around elves.

He had to work tonight. It was just a temporary front of a job, playing the lute at a magister's party, touching up the makeup of pleasure slaves. His former master would say it was beneath him, and he was lucky that they hadn't yet run into each other. The jobs paid well enough, but money was never an issue, since Saul supplied him with everything he could ever need.

But a known elf-blood couldn't be unemployed and eating. People would get suspicious.

Technically, he was going behind Saul's back, but Saul hadn't exactly been making the most logical decisions lately. They should have turned Anders in the moment a bounty was posted.

Even if Anders was sold, having him in the Imperium was still a problem. The mage knew too much. And he was a terrible liar.

How had he survived all these years on the run and still wear all his emotions on his face? No matter. He would cease to be a problem as soon as he was sold, and then hopefully kidnapped.

Sliding quietly past another darkened corridor, he stepped around two blood wards. Experience in a magister's household taught him the art of trusting the small vibrations in his veins that grew louder as he drew nearer to its edges. Getting caught spying in a magister's home would make him instantly the captor's property, and he'd had enough of being owned.

Florian took the message out of his pocket and wrapped it around a copper piece, adding enough bulk to it so that it would not slip out of its hiding place. It was dark, but he had night eyes, their darkness drinking in the light that others could not see by. He pushed the message between a band of metal and wood on a wine cask destined to be returned by the end of the night.

None other than its recipient would know to look for it there, in a cellar far enough away that it could not be linked to him. It was sparse and cryptic but he dared not add more, not even his suspicions that the unknown, the third hunter, not his contact or the Prince, was one he had not even an inkling of.

Naos did not remember who made him Tranquil.

Florian went back to the party through a different route and played another set of songs. The uneasy feeling lingered, but that was normal. He liked puzzles he could solve, or at least stick a blade into.

He needed more information; and maybe his blades could come in handyin the acquisition of it.


	14. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric, Fenris, and Hawke in Hossberg.

It wasn't uncommon for Fenris to dream of his life in the Imperium, of familiar faces in painfully familiar settings. He discussed this with Hawke once, of why people who were not mages had dreams.

Hawke had explained that everyone traversed the fade. Mages walked freely, wandering outside the safety of their memories into the world beyond. The rest kept to their own cages, a defence mechanism developed over generations.

"Demons can possess anything," Hawke had laughed. "Corpses, mages, templars, mabari, cats - though can you imagine one possessing a nug by accident? Mmm. Pre-roasted rage demon nug. Uh, anyway. In the mundane the connection to the fade isn't as strong and most of your dreams are actually just memories replaying themselves. So there's no demon giving you dreams or trying to possess you. They're just stuff you remember."

Usually he only dimly recalled them on waking, vague scenes of carnage from his past leaving the taste of copper and bitter ashes in his mouth. The details differed by night. Sometimes he saw the same scene of the fog warriors in Seheron, when he killed them under orders from Danarius, and from those he woke screaming.

But this was the third day he'd had this dream, with a scene that should have disgusted and shocked him, so how he woke aching and hard was - horrifying that he would find such a thing arousing - strange.

They were faces he had seen before. A magister that had visited Danarius often, not flinching in the face of his lyrium-branded bodyguard, a slaver trading in flesh, clad in rumours. Between them was someone he knew equally well - Fenris buried his face in his hands.

He told Hawke once that he was tired of running, that at some point one must turn and face the tiger. The demons on the outside were made of flesh and bone, and he could slash at them with his blade and his claws and as he slaughtered his past one magister at a time, he was left with only his own mind, his own forest of consciousness for a hunting ground.

So much hate he could not let go. So many deflections and short answers and Hawke not strong enough to press him for more.

Now he was taking memories best forgotten and confusing them with their present, the reality of losing Anders to Tevinter. He could not dwell on it any longer. Fenris took the short walk to their shared wash basin and quickly splashed water over his eyes, hoping the sudden drop in temperature would cool his brain. But trying not to think about it only made it worse, the sight, the sound, the _smell_ of spring grass and floral incense invading his waking life.

This was his new life where he woke on his own accord and lived as he wished; those people had no power over him anymore. Fenris snarled at the basin. Behind him came a startled squawk; their Hawke was a dove, perpetually hungover and jumping at every little noise in the morning.

Sometimes he wondered why they all followed him. Lately they had been busy hunting down every last slaver along the Minanter from the edge of the Free Marches to the Anderfels, using Hawke and the whore he hired on as bait.

Sven, the man who could pass for a sibling of Anders but definitely not a twin, had since returned to Nevarra City, Hawke having paid him enough that he never had to sell his body again. They got their information from the last trap, allowing the two to be taken into an old holding cave that had only one exit; Anders was sold to a broker in Minrathous nearly five months ago, and he had probably changed hands since, brokers rarely keeping a slave for more than a month. Now it was a matter of travelling to Minrathous and finding the broker and getting the location out of him. Either that or check at the registry where they kept the slave records.

Fenris was stalling; for time, for their other friends to arrive so he could bow out and take a ship back to Kirkwall. He should never have come back this far north.

Technically, Hawke was a mage that bested Danarius in a duel outside of Tevinter, so if they travelled within its borders, the Senate would grant Hawke everything he owned - Danarius' entire estate, his household slaves, and if Hawke chose to take it, a position one rank lower than Danarius in the senate.

What people outside of Tevinter did not understand was the logistics of an economy completely reliant on slaves. Taxes were outrageously high, the government had a country's worth of refugees and poor to support, and mundane citizens had to compete with skilled slaves for their trade. If the government took the slaves from a dead magister's household, it also meant they had to support them. The other option would be to free them, but they would also be given the freedom to starve and live on the streets, more resentment the system could ill afford.

Low ranking magisters died all the time; splitting and rewarding households and promoting mages up the senate kept the economy in sustainable stasis.

It had been less than a year since they killed Danarius. The registry would hold the villa and the estate for five years, waiting for a claimant, the slaves put to work in farms and factories for the government. After those five years the household would be split and given to surviving veterans of the war newly elected into the senate.

By the laws of Tevinter, Hawke now had official claims on Fenris.

Fenris hadn't told Hawke any of this.

Part of him never fully trusted Hawke. He was a mage, but certainly they had gotten through that part of their differences by now.

And that was just it - Hawke was so very easy to get along with. His brand of friendship wasn't so much loyalty as it was enabling. He never challenged any of them, treated Anders' possession as though he had no more taken a demon into himself as he had alcohol, and followed the abomination around like a loyal mabari.

Not that Fenris hadn't done the same. Following a mage was familiar and disturbingly comforting in a life where the future was always uncertain. Although, in hindsight, if he had only wished for certainly, he should have joined the Qun the first chance he had on Seheron.

"Varric said he's confirmed Anders' location," Hawke said from his spot by the door. "Apparently the broker kept him."

"A healer is a rare thing in the Imperium. A slaver who is able to keep one in his home would gain many," Fenris paused to find a word that did not compliment what he wished to point out, wiping at his face with a towel and joining Hawke by the doorframe. " _friends_ in high places, simply because they would need to visit him to partake of a healer's services."

"Well, the thing is," Hawke looked sober suddenly. "It's the same slaver we sort of ignored for months because the rumours seemed ... unlikely."

The news came to them in bits and pieces; there was a slave often seen in the government district, head covered by a veil and led around on a leash. As exotic as that seemed to the rest of the group, keeping a pleasure slave on a leash was common practice, whether leashed like a hound or in Fenris' own case, a Qunari saarebas.

When they had heard this at the time, the only confirmation a school of magic and hair colour, each of them dismissed it in turn, as Anders just did not seem to possess the kind of temperament to put up with such treatment even if he had to do it to survive. Add to that the envious tone of magisters wishing they had a slave as devoted as the one following Saul, and even Isabela thought they were tracking the wrong mage.

The image of Anders between those two men surfaced again, and he almost asked Hawke about it. But there was nothing new there, no visions or planted ideas; they had talked about the slaver Saul in the past months, and Darinius had a habit of calling on Danarius on a regular basis. _No talent social climbing hack,_ Danarius used to call him, ignoring the very same in the ranks of his apprentices.

Hawke was waiting for an answer, so Fenris scrounged for something positive to say, "if he's being kept on a leash, that's your confirmation that they're not beating him."

"I'm sorry," Hawke stared straight ahead, crease appearing between his brows, "am I supposed to be comforted by that? Because I'm not."

"It's not your fault, Hawke," Fenris said reflexively.

"Then whose is it, exactly?" Hawke ran a hand through his hair, rubbing at his temples. "It's all right. I'm used to it. It's always my bloody fault when shit goes wrong."

"It's not as if you could have marched into Minrathous and demanded his return, Hawke. There are laws against that," Fenris pointed out. "A slave broker like Saul is untouchable. If he was a magister you could have challenged him to a duel, but an Imperial citizen is protected by its laws."

And it wasn't entirely Hawke's fault. From what Fenris had heard, Anders had decided to sacrifice himself - unnecessarily, but nevertheless that was his intention - in order to save Hawke.

"I should have tried anyway. So the walls are guarded by golems - how many golems have we killed together, Fenris? How many blood mages, abominations, demons? We've hunted down the demons that supposedly taught the first magisters how to use blood magic." Hawke shrugged, looking as though he actually believed that he could invade Minrathous on his own. "I'm sure it can't be that difficult. Now we've waited so long that I'm not even sure if ... even if ..."

"You're not sure if the mage survived this ordeal with his mind intact."

Hawke shook his head sadly, "there's that, and I'm not sure if getting him out of Tevinter is the best option."

"Are you implying that we should leave him in slavery?" Fenris' tone dropped dangerously low. "Or that you would find him and take him as your own slave?"

"Maker's breath, no!" Hawke looked appalled enough that Fenris felt sorry for suggesting such a thing. "I mean, he's safe there. The chantry wants him tranquil or dead, and Sebastian posted a bounty. If we're going to hide, we can blend in with the refugees in Minrathous. I've slummed it once, I can do it again."

Fenris knew that his friend was the type to fight only when forced into a corner, or when the decision had been made for him; then he fought to survive, nothing more. It was the one thing that made the man likable when they met, but now, years later, it was irritating how easily he chose cowardice.

It was always the same; Hawke insisted on not killing templars unless absolutely necessary, but Anders practically sought them out. Once Anders was at his side, Hawke was willing to do anything to please the _mage._ Most of the trouble they had gotten into was due to the abomination and his unwillingness to hide what he was, or the righteous fire of Vengeance demanding that they hunted down every last demon in Kirkwall.

And now that Anders wasn't with him, Hawke would always choose to run and hide if it was the chantry that came calling.

"If you are planning to go through the gates of Minrathous as a mage," Fenris said slowly, watching for a reaction. "I'm afraid I cannot go with you."

Hawke said nothing for a time, staring in front of him with his arms crossed. A sparking in the air alerted him to leaking magic - a sign that Hawke was angry.

"So slaver hunting is all fun, but if I'm planning to rescue him from the Imperium you want no part of it?"

"No. That is not -" Feris shook his head quickly, denying Hawke's implication that he wanted to leave Anders in slavery. "I cannot set foot in the city. I am wanted inside its borders, for having killed a high ranking magister. You know how recognizable I am, even in Kirkwall."

There were altogether too many reasons why he did not want to be in Minrathous again. The elf covered in lyrium that served Danarius was well-known. Fenris was a different person then. It had been many years since he had to face those memories, and those people who yet live who remembered him for what he was.

Every slave had found himself on a punishment rack at one point or another. He should not feel ashamed because of it, but shame was exactly what his master meant to instill. It had seemed so normal then, he had spoken out of turn, he was punished, the shame was for having disobeyed in the first place.

But it was the punishment he would remember, and recall each detail in his nightmwares. The proud warrior image he had built for himself in Kirkwall meant nothing at all in Tevinter.

Out here, they were friends, even if he followed Hawke's every commond. It would feel different if they were within its borders and Hawke was his master. It was far too easy to fall into the role of a magister's bodyguard.

If he wasn't that already, for the past six years.

"Fenris," Hawke combed his hair back with his fingers, the unruly mop of it falling right back into a tousled mess as soon as his hand left it. "I need a swordsman."

"Send for your brother," Fenris said. He could not afford to give in this time; he had given in to Hawke's professed _need_ often enough. This time his identity was on the line. "A templar will be of more use to you where you are going."

His sensitive hearing picked up the defeated air that left Hawke's lungs as he slumped against the wall, and Fenris nearly turned back. Sometimes he feared that Hawke's manipulation might be worse than blood magic.

Hawke had listened to him rant about Tevinter over the years; but Fenris was aware that though Hawke was a good listener, he absorbed very little. Like most people, he only heard what he wanted to hear, and discarded the rest. That he had given Anders a Tevinter Chantry amulet after all the years he 'listened' to Fenris speak of the Imperium was an obvious sign. It was hard to comprehend the oddity - the moral anarchy despite all the laws - of Tevinter if one had not lived it as a slave.

Everything had seemed so commonplace then. Even now he could fall into that mode of thinking; he was a tool, a sword, a slave. His actions were unrelated to him, blood spilt without his will, lives cut short by another's command. By extension he was blameless.

He wished he still felt that way, sometimes. Not every person they killed alongside Hawke was a bandit or a slaver; some were just people in the wrong place at the wrong time, or having offended the wrong noble. With freedom came regret, a newly acquired conscience that the blood on his hands was his own responsibility. There was that one event in the recent past - no, he would not dwell on it.

Let the witch take all the blame for that one, a tree planted for every soul even though Fenris cautioned that it would only mean more undead. Still, on the long walk back to Kirkwall Hakwe coddled her. At least she was not with them now; Isabela had taken Merrill on her ship, to sail the ocean where there were no templars.

Varric had sent a message for the women to meet the three of them here in Hossberg. By land, it was a treacherous trek through the plains with the sun beating down over them, the wind blasting through the Merdaine with not a tree in sight. Isabela would join them by landing in Tallo and following the Lattenfluss.

The pirate would tell Hawke what a fool idea it was to brave Minrathous to rescue his Anders. She was already risking much, braving Qunari infested waters to reach them in the Anderfels.

Magisters travelled often, both inside and outside of Tevinter. If they kept an eye on his movements, sooner or later Anders would be outside the fortress that was the government district of Minrathous. It would be much easier to ambush the group and rescue him then.

But Hawke was understandably impatient. He had watched the Blight swallow up his home, his mother dying in the hands of an insane blood mage, and later he related to Fenris over wine, _if only we'd fled Ferelden sooner_ or _if only I went home earlier that day and noticed that she was missing._ If Fenris had to hear _I let him down_ as Hawke lamented of how he lost Anders, Fenris would sooner slap his friend.

Fenris strapped on the last perfectly clean piece of armour. He had cleaned and polished everything he owned since they finished the last hunt. With a sigh he placed his hands over the edge of the table and stood, the rough wood in the rustic inns of the Anderfels reminding him of the backrooms in the Hanged Man, even the carvings on the tables and the suspicious brown stains on the rough floor familiar.

He had stalled long enough.

By now, Hawke would have had his third pint while whining about the loss of Fenris in his fool plans, and Varric was probably on the verge of shooting him. Fenris skulked down the steps soundlessly, old cautious habits keeping his back ever so slightly to the wall.

The tavern part of the inn was quiet; too quiet to have had a Hawke in it, even. Having lived through too many ambushes to not spot one at the first sniff of danger, he stopped midway down the stairs to listen. A shuffling of mugs near the main doors, travellers stopping to take their midday meal; no sound of metal boots on wood that spoke of armed men with swords.

Fenris took his sword of mercy in both hands and crept quietly down the stairs.

"Whoa, elf. It's just me," Varric raised both hands, gesturing him to stand down before the rest of the tavern took notice.

"Where's Hawke?"

"Probably sleeping off his hangover," the dwarf hopped off his stool, leaving a meal half finished. "Nothing to do but wait, this week, I'm afraid."

Fenris lifted an eyebrow at him, "but I talked to him just this morning."

"You're kidding."

They stared at each other for a second too long before both of them went back up the stairs, acting as casual as they could and trying not to panic. Hawke was predictable for the most part, save where Anders was involved.

Fenris suddenly wished that it was Merrill who had been kidnapped. They would at least be able to make logical decisions if it was the blood mage that went missing.

The door to Hawke's room was slightly open, cutting a streak of stark sunlight in the dark hallway. Varric tested the handle, kicked the door open, and gestured Fenris forward.

It was empty. Hawke was gone and so was the pack he kept at the foot of his bed.

"No scorch marks, no dead bodies. Our boy left on his own."

"Besotted fool," Fenris muttered under his breath.

What did the mage expect to do? Storm the gates by himself? Hawke was an incredibly powerful mage, but Minrathous had never fallen, not to Andraste or to the Qunari. Fenris turned the few books and letters that were left on the table over and over, hoping to find a clue that he couldn't quite read.

"I knew I should have shot him in both legs when I had the chance," Varric stepped into his personal space and Fenris moved aside immediately, leaving the dwarf to rummage through the papers instead. "So, you saw him at breakfast? That's four hours' headstart. Knowing Hawke, he's going to follow the river north, and then east along the coast."

"There are no roads along the coast."

"He'd get lost otherwise," Varric pointed at the desk, pointing at a bundle of rolled up, aged and yellow vellum. "He left his maps."

Something else caught Fenris' attention; a sheet of paper near the maps, folded and unfolded again. It was the kind of paper used only in the imperium; silk was produced in Tevinter and the northern parts of Antiva, but once the silk was spun into cloth for export, the ends and discarded short lengths that could not be used were collected and combined with wood pulp to create luxury paper. It had a smooth sheen, reflecting the bright daylight, and the black ink that climbed over it crawled in his vision like spiders' legs.

"That's," Fenris grimaced at the memories even something so small brought to him. He gestured with his gauntlet, "paper only a magister can afford."

Varric took the sheet and turned it over. Words were only written on one side, and Fenris noticed as he unfolded it that there was no official seal. Not from a magister; a valued apprentice using his master's stationary, perhaps.

Not from Anders, then. A slave would not dare, not even one as bold as the abomination.

"It's from ... Feynriel. That mage we sent to Tevinter years back, wasn't it? The envelope's missing, so let's assume that Hawke took it with him. Not one of my contacts - the censors are really harsh on little apprentices in Tevinter, and mages are terrible at sneaking around. Well, He sounds friendly enough here," he paused in his reading, lifting an eyebrow at the sudden tension in the room. "What's wrong?"

Fenris gripped the edge of the table so hard that the tips of his gauntlets gouged lines on its surface. His surroundings, his friends, they were reduced to what they were before he met Hawke suddenly; each shadow around the corner was coming for him and he could do nothing but stay ahead of them.

He should not have hid from Hawke the friend they killed on Sundermount.

They did it to protect Hawke at the time; he was distraught enough dealing with Merrill and her crying fit, upset himself over the needless deaths of so many. The one face they knew well, who would not even have been there in the first place if not for their well-meaning leader, Fenris had closed her eyes with his own hands after pulling the arrow out of her chest.

Fenris pushed away from the table and marched towards his room, "we have to go after him. Now."

"If he takes the coast, we can intercept him by going over the High Reaches. It'll take him an extra week at least," Varric pointed out, "and Rivaini's meeting us here."

It wasn't only Hawke that was tired of waiting; Fenris had waited years and the constant feeling of being hunted was akin to having a tiger at his back. He now slept long enough to dream, and dreams were turning out to be dangerous things.

The last time he felt like this, the hopeless shroud of something he could not possibly fight descending, the fantasy of freedom crumbling around him as a mansion built of sand, he was on the Island of Seheron. Danarius and his guards arrived to claim him then, and Fenris had given in to despair.

Obedience was no longer an option. He was a different person now. He had friends. But were they above magic's influence?

Perhaps he could trust the dwarf, who did not dream.

"You don't understand," He turned, hoping the fear of being prey did not show in his eyes.

For once, Varric waited without adding extrenuous words, "tell me."

"When we went to look for Merrill's demon on Sundermount," Fenris spat out her name, though the _witch_ wasn't here to hear his contempt. "There were complications. We had to kill the Keeper. And it didn't stop there, because when we tried to leave, the clan attacked us. We ... defended ourselves."

Varric stared at him, more curiousity than horror in his eyes. That was their dwarf; in the face of an interesting tale, one could practically hear the scratching of a quill in his thoughts.

"Feynriel's mother rejoined the Dalish after Hawke sent him to Tevineter," Varric supplied.

He was present throughout the years embellishing their almost heroic deeds, and the tale of the dreamer never found its way to the shelves. Some ancient powers should not be allowed to walk free, regardless of how innocent the mind that wielded it seemed to be.

Knowing that he hadn't the heart to kill her on his own, Hawke had brought the two people who wouldn't have hesitated a second before striking Merrill down in the event that she became possessed.

When Arianni raised her bow against them, Fenris phased forward to push her aside, hoping to incapacitate her long enough that she would wake unharmed. Surely she had not truly wanted to kill the people who saved her son. But Sebastian only saw a Dalish woman training her bow on Fenris, and he reacted by putting an arrow through her heart first.

At the time it seemed appropriate to hide her death from Hawke. Hawke had enough friends and family to mourn, and he valued the occasional white lie when dealing with the bereaved.

"So," Varric ventured, fingers tapping on the runes on the side of Bianca. "Hawke doesn't have a friend in Minrathous."

Dream walker. Dream stalker. The power to shape worlds in the fade, but no waking power to aid him against elves wielding greatswords. No lures were set out for Fenris, only warnings to keep him away.

He wondered what Sebastian was dreaming of. Visions of Anders living in splendor, perhaps, urging the prince to draw closer to another man who sought vengeance.

"No, he doesn't." Fenris said, steeling his mind for the long walk ahead. "And I'm not going to sleep at all until we reach him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the system of slavery and its problems - high taxes, slave labour competing with 'regular' labour - it's based on that little dialogue with Varania, where she claimed that freedom was no boon. The rest came from real world history combined with a bit of the codex.
> 
> The codex offers some interesting hints, like how there's 'non-contract' slaves, and how 'contract' slaves are better off. We also know the city's crowded with 80 years' worth of war refugees (if ya thought Kirkwall was bad, and that's one year of Blight) and the only way I can see them not overthrowing the government is that the system is supporting them to make sure no one starves. Cue high taxes, on top of the tithe that the chantry takes, which is canon.


	15. Circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke's arrival in Minrathous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't mind me, I'm just going to catch this up to the meme.

Hawke never thought he would find himself willingly staying with a Circle of Magi. But unlike the oppressive, windowless buildings that housed mages in the other parts of Thedas, there were no army of templars here, only a slew of magic users of all skill levels and ages. After what he went through in Kirkwall where even the most level-headed of the mages turned into abominations, Hawke was feeling particularly twitchy. He counted five templars since his arrival, and one blood mage could have taken them all on easily.

If he thought he smelled fear radiating off templars in the Gallows of Kirkwall, here it was so strong they could bottle the stuff.

 _Especially_ , he mused, _the ones who are guarding me._

The Circle of Minrathous welcomed him readily enough as soon as he gave his name. As detailed in Feynriel's letter, the Champion of Kirkwall was famous here, not for saving a city but for having killed a Kossith from the council of Arishok in single combat. Though it was by no virtue of his arcane knowledge that they revered him, he was a symbol that one single mage could take down an entire army.

Hawke stared down at the city spread out below him. The banister of his curved balcony was polished marble, like everything else, cold hard stone. Hightown was a lot like Minrathous, except here, in the government district at least, they took upkeep and cleanliness to an extreme. With the amount of people he had seen moving through the streets so far, he couldn't say he was surprised; a plague could wipe out the entire population much quicker than an invasion.

Minrathous was crowded and noisy, and it was easily the biggest city he had ever seen. It made Kirkwall look like a village, and Denerim a quaint hamlet. From his lavish guest suite he could see the whole city but not the edge of it - it seemed to go on for miles and miles, even the outskirts were covered in buildings, mud brick insulae packed shoulder to shoulder like the houses in lowtown.

Since his arrival there had been no end of people to keep him busy, from apprentices who wanted to listen to the tales - which Varric would have told with so much more spice - or enchanters who wanted to glean his exact strategies in taking down an army of horned men.

All in all, it was much like the first year after he became the Champion in Kirkwall.

When he tried bringing up the slaver Saul, he was quickly stonewalled. The apprentices had no idea who he was talking about, the enchanters glibly changed the subject, and the magisters laughed; and then they also changed the subject.

His best chance would be to ask for a tour of the slave market. That was where slavers tended to hang out, was it not? According to Varric, it was where Anders was last seen. The decision to rush off on his own seemed doubly rash now; Hawke's strongest trait, aside from his magic, was his ability to delegate. His friends loved him for it, and he got a lot done without lifting a finger.

It also left him rather hopeless on his own, without Varric's wit and Fenris' strength or Aveline's glare.

Hawke decided that he could really use that glare right about now; this magister was particularly annoying. That might not have been the right word to use, as the conversation had not been exactly flowing as it was a trickle, and Hawke had an uneasy feeling that he was being studied by a bird of prey.

Magister Darinius had fingers like talons and eyes to match, his hair drawn back into a long braid that managed to accentuate his high cheekbones. On others, that would have been a compliment, but on Darinius, the thinness of his cheeks were doing enough accentuating on their own. He had a pinched expression that reminded Hawke of Viscount Dumar vexed by Qunari, and the complete darkness of his hair was without even a hint of grey.

He'd heard of mages using blood magic and other people's life force to keep themselves looking young, but he had not suspected that it was more than a fishwives' tale until now.

"I heard you've been asking about Saul," Darinius tapped his fingers on the stone table, an even, musical strum. "It's not surprising. He's famous. But see, he's only famous here, in Minrathous."

_Tap, tap, tap. Strum._

If Varric was here he'd be able to spin it so it'd all make sense, but Hawke was not without his charms, "I had a run-in with some slavers in Nevarra."

"Saul's a good friend of mine, and his services come highly recommended - by the Archon, no less. Are you looking to settle in? Get a seat? Buy some slaves?"

"What? No! Um," Hawke shrugged. "Settling in does sound like a good idea, what with the bounty on my head and all. Hard to find a place to live in Thedas that's safe for a mage."

"Well, we can't all afford to be unambitious," Darinius lifted up one fine eyebrow. "The Circle is safe enough, I suppose, but you'll have to put up with the, you know..."

Darinius waved one hand in the general direction of the open archway, and the templar that guarded them shifted uncomfortably in his silverite armour, enameled in black but chipped in places enough for the metal to shine through.

It took Hawke a few moments to realize that he'd just been insulted. Common enough occurrence really, what with being a Ferelden _turnip_ attending hightown parties. The nobles jabbed with veiled compliments and he had learned to shrug it off. It was only until after he was declared champion that they were glad he showed up at events at all.

"Templar is a bad word in Kirkwall, too," Hawke smiled. "I was there when Knight Commander Meredith turned into a pile of red lyrium."

_Tap, tap, tap. Strum._

"So, Champion of Kirkwall," Darinius hummed, thin lips pursed to echo his narrowed eyes. "Slayer of templars, vanquisher of Qunari. Killer of many, many magisters."

"I only kill people who tried to kill me first?" Hawke cursed his habit of turning everything into a question and that unmanly squeak, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

"So you did kill those magisters who traveled to Kirkwall. Good to know," Darinius crossed his arms and leaned into the high back of his chair. "Danarius asked me to go fetch his slave, you know. But I told him I'm really not into travelling."

"No, you don't look like the adventuring type," the demon summoning bookish type who drank blood for breakfast, perhaps. Darinius looked as though he hadn't seen the sun in twenty years.

"And after you killed the Arishok, nobody wanted to go. Bit of a quagmire, really; if he killed you and took back his slave, then he'd have killed _you_ ," Darinius' fingers kept strumming, his gaze unconcerned, resting on the lip of his goblet. "and killing you would be bad for morale, see. The Archon was talking about sending down some Crows, but it seemed we all underestimated you."

"A lot of people tried to kill me," Hawke shrugged again, not noticing the slight upward tilt of Darinius' chin as he smiled. "More so after I became champion, actually."

Darinius stared and blinked, one thin finger tapping his mouth as his smile widened, "a word of advice? Don't go into politics. Just don't."

"I'm not planning on it," he felt mildly insulted, but honestly the hightown ladies were much worse. "My mother used to handle all the brunches and luncheons and catty conversation. Our last Viscount got a beheading and his son was murdered - politics' more trouble than it's worth."

 _I just called you catty, bitch. How'd you like that?_ But Darinius did not look insulted, he only laughed, hiding his mouth behind a closed fist. His fingers went back to tap tap tapping on the table and Hawke was overcome with a burning desire to punch that smirk off his face. Hawke breathed out slowly; this was the first person that acknowledged his questions about Saul, and he couldn't afford to alienate him.

Darinius hummed his agreement, "magister can be a dangerous profession, I'm afraid. My father lived long enough to retire from the war, and then he promptly died in a duel. Such a shame," and for a creepy moment he looked genuinely happy. "But you do plan to stay?"

"I do," _right up until I find Anders and get out of here,_ but how? Varric could have made up a perfectly plausible reason on why he wanted to visit a slaver by now, as they bantered and Hawke floundered.

"I can practically hear the gears turning in your brain," Darinius grinned. "let me spell it out for you: the Archon is overjoyed that you're here. He'll offer you pretty much anything if you agree to join the war effort."

"Anything?" Hawke lifted an eyebrow, "I can think of five things I want off the top of my head that's illegal in the entirety of the Free Marches."

"I assure you that anything you can imagine will be legal in Minrathous," Darinius didn't bat an eyelash. "Think about it. The quickest way to get what you want in this country is to become a magister, and the Archon's ready to hand the title over on a platter."

Hawke found himself staring out blankly over the balcony soon after Darinius excused himself. _People who don't fight in the war get to work all the time. Still, it beats getting gored by horned men,_ he laughed as he tapped his silver goblet on the table one last time.

Anders, if he was here at all, was so close it was driving him mad. Hawke could see the extensive villas that ringed the goverment district, each of them surrounded by high walls and shade trees, and one of them belonged to Saul. There had to be someone in Minrathous who'd be willing to point him the way. Asking around in the Circle brought him Darinius; and he was obviously there on behalf of the Archon.

Kirkwall's convoluted politics, especially those little lectures served to him by Senechal Bran, had taught Hawke that people in power could not afford official embarassment. So the Archon sent a lackey, one with sufficient personal reason to be there, dropping off a suggestion and not a request.

It was certainly the easy way out - he'd be safe in Tevinter as no mage anywhere else in Thedas could hope to be. Those walls and golems and maleficar Fenris was warning him about, well, they'd be between him and all the assorted factions and fraternities that wanted both him and Anders dead.

But then he'd have to join the rest of the blood mages and fight a war on their side against the Qunari. Hawke sighed. _No, thank you._ His father did not warn him about the danger of blood magic for most of his life for him to become a Tevinter magister at the first opportunity. He would just have to find out Saul's address and steal Anders, and then they would run away.

It wasn't much of a plan, but he never had much use for planning. Hawke's idea of planning was to find a lead and track it, and then kill whatever he found at the end of that lead.

And he had no lead. It was extremely frustrating. He rushed to Minrathous because he couldn't stand the waiting anymore, and here he was, in Minrathous, _waiting._

Hawke gathered up the goblets from the table and set them on the platter. It was servants' work, but he never liked having people picking up after him. Here, it was slaves' work, and that was just uncomfortable. Each of the slaves that came in to fix his bed and pick up meals trying his best to look inconspicuous made him feel as though they were there to kill him.

With his first command he banned all the slaves that stood around waiting for his wine cup to empty. That there were slaves dedicated to the task of keeping his cup full was mindboggling - how many slaves did one magister own, that they could afford someone just standing about pouring wine?

The silver goblet in his hand did not match the rest of the set; it was plainer than the others, lacking the ornamental dragon claws that terrorized the other cups. Hawke lifted the cup and held it up to the sunlight; small green stones were melded into silver, each one ran through with a trace of bloody red. A glint of gold caught his eye, and a flicker of movement turned his attention to the stem.

Hawke fumbled the cup as he realized what it was. With trembling hands he unwound the long strand of blond hair from its stem. He winded it up again, turning it around one finger, doubling it over to check its colour.

_"Just let me," finding one hand not enough for the task, Hawke joined his other to the first. The hair tie finally came away, Anders wincing as a stray hair caught in the leather broke off._

_Anders shook his head and hair fanned out over the sides of his face; the portion caught in his top knot was shorter than the rest, and it fell to hit just below his chin. He lifted one eyebrow in inquiry, "happy now?"_

More than you know. _But Hawke left the words unsaid._

_The one hand he still had twined in Anders' hair he let slip, down over the fine edges of his jaw to the back of his neck. Hawke pulled himself up for a kiss, less hurried than the ones they had before, drenched in the dangerous overtones of love._

_"Mmm," he answered, as he hooked his ankles behind Anders' lower back, bringing him ever closer._

Hawke found the hair tie afterwards, tangled in a mess of coverlets. A couple of strands of hair was still stuck to it. Teasing it out beneath the bracers of his new robes now, he compared the hair he found on the goblet to the one he kept always on his wrist.

They were the same. Of course they were the same. But if he confronted Darinius about it he'd probably tell Hawke that he had no idea how it got there. Politicians were the same everywhere: slippery eels who never outwardly threatened. What Darinius left were suggestions only, nothing more.

 _Well, fuck that._ Hawke wasn't about to play their games. He wasn't made for politics, and he had no head for it. If there was a task on the job board, he could handle that, and if there was killing to be done, he could have done that too. This sneaking around throwing veiled threats about just wasn't his thing.

Hawke tossed the goblet behind him and barrelled out the door, tucking a hand inside his pocket to make sure that the envelope was still there. During his years of helping Anders with the underground, they had sent many a mage on the road to Tevinter, but Feynriel was the only person who tried to contact him.

Down spiral staircases and curved hallways he made his way slowly down the tall tower. All Circles were housed in buildings like these. Even in Tevinter, the mages were kept away from the populace right up until the Storm age. The windows were wide and bright here, and the corridors were flooded with light.

It had been four years since he last saw Feynriel. At seventeen he was gangly, his time spent with the Dalish covered his cheeks in a dusting of freckles. His eyes were full of fear, reminding Hawke each time they passed Sundermount of his mistake, that maybe the Gallows was a better place for him.

The boy he saved should be an adult by now, but it was hard to think of him as anything other than that fearful, awkward child with great big eyes, begging to be made Tranquil. But Anders was with him on that trip and even if it was the right thing to do, he would never have forgiven Hawke for it.

He had a feeling that no matter how things turned out with the young mage, all that it could lead to was regret.

An elegant youth stopped him as he was walking down another set of spiral stairs, and Hawke thought him vaguely familiar. He wore long, flowing robes meant for an apprentice, with a slightly different cut, high collar and embroidery that marked him as one that lived outside the Circle.

Sunlight streamed through what looked to be an arrow slit, and Hawke had to squint to make out the young man's features under his platinum hair. A pair of dark gold eyes blinked back at him, "Hawke?"

"Do I know you?" The words tumbled out before recognition kicked in. Then, almost incredulously, "Feynriel?"

He did not look that much different, really. He had sprouted some, and if they were standing on the same landing Hawke was certain he would have had to look up to speak to him. The braid was gone, replaced by a messy lion's mane of wavy platinum silk cascading over his shoulders.

"I haven't changed that much, have I?" There was added gravel in his voice too, but just barely, and he had blond stubble on his chin, a light fuzz that caught the light, casting a glow about his face.

"You've grown taller," Hawke said, and felt suddenly too old. Older people were always telling kids how much they had grown each time they met, even if nothing had changed. He never thought that one day he would be the one spewing that nonsense. "I was just heading out to look you up."

Feynriel shook his head, "that's a very bad idea. Apprentices are watched closely here."

"There goes the illusion of mage freedom," Hawke glanced around. They were alone, for the moment.

"Mages aren't free here - magisters are. I heard about your recent ... inquiries," Feynriel hurriedly stuffed a small piece of paper into Hawke's hands before passing him on the stairs, heading up.

"Where are you going?" Hawke turned. "And what's this?"

"I have a class to attend," Feynriel shrugged. "It's the only way to get out of following my master about, and you have a slaver to visit. I shan't keep you."

And here he was hoping to catch up with an old friend. It all made sense now - he was expecting Feynriel to write him all the time after his arrival in Tevinter, but only one letter ever got through in three years. The Imperium wanted to attract mages to join its ranks, but not warn them of the blood magic and the possibility of getting caught and sold into slavery.

No sane man would willingly step within its walls otherwise.

Saul's home straddled the edge of the government district, conveniently located a skip and a hop away from the slave market. Finding it by the directions Feynriel gave him was easy enough. Getting in, however, was proving much more difficult.

The guards at the door were being particularly obstinate.

It was far easier to get into the Viscount's office when he was a refugee - he simply asked Varric to pick the lock.

Up close, the walls were the height of three men, with an ornate iron gate wide enough to admit an elephant. Beyond it stood a line of tall trees, obscuring the garden from view.

After much annoyance - and Hawke could very well annoy people in order to get his way - from him, the guards finally agreed to let him meet with Saul's assistant.

"If you wish to see Master Saul, you would have to make an appointment. His schedule is filled up for the next five weeks," the 'assistant' spoke in the monotone of the tranquil, but there was no brand on his forehead.

Hawke wondered briefly if he was just a very bored clerk.

So Saul was as busy as the Viscount of Kirkwall and then some. It was a disturbing thought, that a slave broker was in such high demand here.

"Can you make an exception for the Champion of Kirkwall?" He wasn't expecting it to work here, but he had a title and what was a title for if not to get him through closed doors?

"I do not make exceptions," he said, shaking a head full of mousey brown hair.

Definitely tranquil. Other men would have angled for a bribe by now. Hawke knew better than to argue with the tranquil; he had visited the Gallows often enough to know that there was an ulterior motive behind putting Tranquil to work as merchants: the tranquil could not be haggled with.

Though they were not without their faults. Keeping secrets was definitely not a tranquil trait.

"When does your master go to market?"

"One on the clock, ser. Master Saul keeps a very regular schedule," the tranquil mage added, "he is out every afternoon at the slave market. This is public knowledge."

 _Well, that was easy._ Or perhaps too easy. It was nearly lunch time, and the market was nearby. Hawke gave the tranquil mage a nod that was not returned, and left for the hubbub of the colourful market stalls.

Kirkwall's hightown market did not compare to this pandemonium, nor did Nevarra city's leaning buildings and dirty streets that made up their market district come close to the noise or the crowds. Here, the air was a wall of mixed scents, from incense to spice to curries served from street stalls, and the canopies that covered everything out of necessity were brightly dyed canvas, and even the shadows were tinged with colour.

He went shopping first for clothes, tunics with low collars trimmed with gold and silver thread were in fashion and the robe that the Circle gave him was far too flashy. Since he was an eternal optimist, he also picked out clothing for Anders, choosing jeweled tones to compliment his blond hair and fair colouring.

Aquamarine, he decided, suited Anders perfectly. A new leather tie also, for his hair must have grown longer. An earring to replace the one he lost years ago, set with a piece of amber.

The past four months saw him acquainted with anonymity once again, no more being stopped on the streets due to his distinctive armour that connected him to his status as Champion. Even here in Minrathous, where the story of the Champion was well known, his description was so exaggerated that no one could possibly recognize him if they did not already know of his arrival.

He was quite certain, also, that the templars did not follow. He had left all his things aside from his coin purse back in his room, and that was enough assurance to his guards that he was coming back. No one was leaving Minrathous without walking papers, the mages in the Circle had told him; anyone caught trying would be assumed an escaped slave and treated accordingly.

So his guards did not follow, though whether that was because it was unnecessary or they were simply afraid of him was up for debate.

But he felt watched, nonetheless. It was hard to describe, but Hawke had been in enough dangerous situations to know how to spot an ambush. The beggar by the pillars glanced at him one too many times, a woman he saw shopping for fruits had gone from the fish stall to the fruit stall and back again, seemingly without buying anything. All of these people seemed to be unarmed, but they were spying on him, and he had a feeling they knew him for who he was.

Hawke shook his head. He was getting paranoid, that was all, a stranger in a strange place without his friends. It wouldn't be a surprise at all if the magisters had him under guard; he was an important guest and he was more valuable to them alive than dead. What was important right now was for him to keep an eye out for -

Anders.

Hawke had heard the gossip related to him by Varric through the months, of the slave Saul kept on a leash by his side, but he had waved them aside as baseless rumours. That could not possibly have been Anders, not his rash, daring friend who stood up to Meredith in her own office.

If he thought the tales had a grain of truth, he would have gathered them all, called Isabela back from the sea and dragged Carver out of the Gallows, calling in every favor from everyone he did favors for in order to get him back. All this time he simply assumed that what he heard was exaggerated or that it wasn't the right mage at all.

Because if the stories were true, then he was at the heart of it. He was the one who agreed to travel to Tevinter together, and he was the one who lost Anders along the way. Whatever befell him that made him follow willingly behind a slaver - the kind of person they all learned to hate in their years in Kirkwall - were all Hawke's fault. He couldn't dodge the blame, blast it with magic or stick it with the pointy end of his staff. It was the kind of responsibility that his mother reminded him of when they lost Bethany, and when she had perished herself in the dank darkness under Kirkwall.

When his friends asked him how he was, he told them he was fine. It had been years since he felt her life ebbing away in his arms, but he couldn't say he ever got over that moment, or that he could hope to, ever. Hawke wanted to believe that he did not fail her. But what he took away from that second as her eyes turned away was that he had given too little, too late, yet again.

 _That's not him. We'll set up a trap and keep looking,_ he told Varric, each time his friend brought up the possibility that this gilded, covered slave was the one they were searching for. _Do you think Anders would agree to go around naked on a leash like a dog?_

What he realized now as Saul and his retinue moved through the two large pillars that marked the opening of the marketplace was that Anders would have done anything to survive. If it meant living another day, he'd put up with any treatment.

Because dead was dead and anything else was reversible.

And the only reason why Hawke had taken so long to get here, six months after Anders was captured, was because he did not know his friend well enough.

He had heard the descriptions often. But he wasn't ready for the reality of it, that his Anders - and that surprised him too, that he thought of the mage as his, and always had - would crawl along the ground on his knees. At most, he expected his friend to be battered, covered in scrapes and cuts from being dragged unwillingly.

Then they both passed him by, the dark slaver and his veiled, willing slave, just as the tales described. Neither paid any attention to him, the drab Ferelden champion in Minrathous circle robes.

He had dreamt of this reunion, but none of his fantasies involved Anders ignoring him. But there it was.

Of course, they were not alone. Hawke turned and watched as the procession made their way slowly through the market, Saul casually tossing a couple of coppers to the beggar that Hawke spotted eying him previously. The beggar picked up both the coins, and he fumbled one. The coin rolled and rolled, hitting the toe of Hawke's sandal before landing on its side to a stop.

There were some things that people did simply out of instinct, and picking up an object that another person dropped that landed by your feet was one of them. He wasn't even surprised when he looked up to see Saul standing over him, one hand palm up in a welcoming, helpful gesture.

Hawke ignored the hand and took the opportunity to stare down the slaver, and decided in a heartbeat that no slaver had the right to look so damned peaceful. Saul wore a faint smile, and the slight wrinkles that adorned the corners of his eyes only added to the serenity that surrounded him.

"It's so rare to meet a considerate man these days, especially one so famous."

 _And he had no business wearing a smile that genuine, either._ Hawke blinked - stupidly, like a dumb cow, he thought - and placed the dropped coin in Saul's proffered hand. It was replaced, quickly, smoothly, as he had seen Isabela swap cards at Wicked Grace.

"Is this your first time at market?" Saul tipped his chin towards a fruit stall, its tables laden with yellow, alien fruit. "May I be so forward as to suggest the mangoes? It's in season right now, and those came from my own orchard."

Then he was gone, taking his golden slave with him, leaving no room at all for questions. Hawke palmed the new coin in his hand; in place of the copper he picked up was a silver coin with a wolf's head.

There was a shadow in Minrathous, intrigue played by the slaves and freed men to match the grand game in the senate. They played it beneath the watchful eyes of the magisters and only the players knew the rules. The only thing that prepared Hawke for this was the coded notes passed between the members of the mage underground, and even that was not as sophisticated as this, or maybe they just had not so many players.

Or maybe the stakes here were just that much higher.

The message was plain enough. He was to take the coin he was given and buy a mango with it.

"Lord Saul grows the sweetest mangoes in all of Minrathous," the shop keeper chattered, dropping pertinent information only rarely, so people passing by would not bother to listen too closely. "I pick mine up everyday at five on the clock, well before any other buyers. And these are the pick of the bunch, of course."

"Five is the best time, then?" Hawke pressed the silver wolf coin into the shop keep's hand.

His fingers were closed over, and the smile on the man's face never flickered as he gave Hawke's hand a hard squeeze. "It is, it is. Best to get there when there isn't a lineup, and the orchard has its own gate. Wide enough for the wagons, yes?"

This was nearly as convoluted as the time he had to get the Gem of Kerochek for his uncle Gamlen, though the methods used here were less traceable.

Hawke found himself standing outside the servant's entrance at five, sharp, outside a plain metal gate that stood in stark contrast to the overly decorated mess that was everywhere else in Minrathous. Hawke pulled at the gate experimentally and found it locked. He found a slot in the lock, however, and it was about the same thickness as his coin.

He slipped the coin in. It caught halfway, and as he turned it the gate swung open without even a whine.

"Well, you're not stupid, at least. But you're not seven feet tall with lightning shooting out of your eyes, either."

Saul leant up against the stone wall next to the gate, and though he was not a mage and appeared to be unarmed, Hawke felt intimidated. All at once he was ten years old again, and he was in for a scolding.

He shook it off. Saul had presence, he'd give him that, but Hawke knew he was in the right. Slavers were always in the wrong; it was just one of those universal facts, "if you want to talk to me, all you have to do is ask."

"I can't invite you to meet with me openly. Fortunately, they're not watching you as closely as they watch me." Saul gestured him forward and Hawke followed.

"Is Anders here?" Hawke asked. It seemed a futile thing to be dishonest with Saul, and anyhow he didn't know how to play at subtle. "You seem to know that I'm looking for him already."

"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. I have a slave named Anders," Saul shrugged noncommittally, leading them between two lines of fruit trees. "In all likelihood he's not your Anders. He's blond, sure, but so are most men from the Anderfels."

"Can anyone talk straight in this city?"

"That's easy for you to say," Saul led them to a small shed in a corner of the orchard. So far, they had not run across anyone. "But you're working from a very limited perspective."

"And what does that mean?" Hawke crossed his arms.

"Let me put it this way - why are you here, Garrett Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall?"

"I came to rescue a friend," Hawke replied.

The inside of the shed was dank and oppressive, too hot by late afternoon. It occurred to Hawke that it was a perfect place to murder someone and stow a body.

But Saul did not look like the murdering type. He had never seen such hands on a killer, though those eyes told a different story. The steely orbs that met with his own were grey as storm clouds, and cold as ice.

"Right. And you are under the impression that I have your friend," he moved closer, and Hawke took an instinctive step backwards, bumping into a work bench. "You see, everyone in Minrathous knows. They know, and I keep the slave covered because they can't admit they know. It's a very complicated world you've stumbled into, Garrett Hawke. Now, the real question is, how did _you_ find out?"

It was a small shed, and Saul stood too close to begin with. They were of a height, still Hawke felt the need to cower beneath that menacing scowl. Hawke collected the months of frustration, dead ends that led to nights staring into the bottom of a whiskey bottle, and released it all in one wave.

Templars had been thrown to the floor with Hawke's mindblast; Saul didn't even flinch. He didn't strike out against Hawke, either, which was surprising. Most people reacted strongly to magic used against them.

"Do you know what the punishment is," Saul said slowly, enunciating every syllable as though Hawke was too stupid to understand him if he spoke too fast. "For attacking an Imperial citizen in his own home?"

"No. In my experience laws are pretty fluid. Otherwise I'd have ended up in the Circle years ago," Hawke replied flippantly, gathering energy this time for a sleep spell. Resisting a mindblast was one thing, but he had other magic in his arsenal to disable without bloodshed.

"You seem to believe that the same rules that worked in the rest of Thedas applies here. They do not."

Incapacitating Saul would give him enough time to search the villa for Anders. On the other hand, Saul knew exactly where Anders was, and he was being peculiarly reasonable. There were worse things in a strange country than being trapped in a garden shed with an unarmed man.

Hawke allowed the collected entropic energy to dissipate, "Alright, I'll bite. What's the worst thing that can happen if I attack you right now? I've been through my share of scrapes and you don't even carry a penknife, do you?"

"I am well within my rights to arrest you and sell you as a slave, if you must know," Saul looked down the length of his nose. "Even the Archon can't stop me. Magisters are sticklers for laws."

 _Not if I kill you first._ "But you won't," Hawke smirked.

"No, I won't." Saul smoothed his hair back with one hand, and for the first time Hawke noticed the dark circles under this eyes. "I know you won't think so, but we're on the same side."

"And I should trust you because...?"

"What are you options, Garrett Hawke?"

Well, there was Feynriel, but he was not in the best position to help. Hawke had no idea who Varric's contacts were in the Imperium. He had not thought to ask; not that Varric would have told him anyway.

"You got me there." He relented, dropping his hands to his sides in a gesture of peace. "But I'm only going to listen to you because you're kind of holding my friend hostage."

"Smart. Here's what you're going to do. You will get on the next ship and get out of Minrathous. You will tell anyone who asks that your information was wrong and what you are looking for is not here."

"Why would I do that?" Hawke asked dubiously, throwing his arms wide. "I've been tracking him for months - if you're on my side can't you just give him to me and I'll find a way to smuggle him out of here?"

"You will, because I can only keep him safe so long as you can convince the magisters that the slave I own is not _your_ Anders," Saul hissed out his words, and Hawke felt a hint of anger in his voice that the man seemed incapable of. "If I had my way you wouldn't have been allowed off the ship at all, but it's a little late for that. You being stubborn - and stupid - by coming here and asking about me with everyone you meet all but confirmed that the slave I own is that same one that the Starkhaven Prince is seeking. Your presence endangers him."

"He'll want to go with me," Hawke said bluntly, and he was so sure of it that for once he did not phrase it as a question. But then he thought of their earlier meeting where Anders ignored him completely, and he wavered, his eyes darting to the side. "Just ask him."

Saul pursed his lips, dimples of disapproval appearing briefly, settling into well-worn grooves. He backed away, opening the door to the shed. Before he stepped out, he turned and gave Hawke one last look.

"I have given my counsel. If his life means anything to you," Saul sighed, the dark circles under his eyes becoming more prominent under the sun. "Leave the same way you came."

Hawke stayed there until Saul's footsteps faded away.

This world he found himself mired in was too confusing for words.

He had known Anders for seven years and pined after him for most of their time together. He saw many different scenarios of how his rescue would have played out, and in all of them Anders was happy to see him, if not ecstatic, and most of his fantasies involved him being quite grateful afterwards.

Anders had blatantly ignored him. That, he was not expecting. Perhaps he had the situation well in hand, having charmed his captor and was on his way to getting out of here on his own. Saul certainly acted as though he personally invested in Anders' well being, and he was a powerful man indeed if the magisters avoided speaking of him.

But if Hawke was easily warned off of anything, he would have gotten back on the ship when they were turned away from Kirkwall the first time. Not giving up in the face of overwhelming odds was one of his strongest traits. Besides, the Anders he knew would never willingly submit to slavery.

Maybe he was just biding his time until Hawke found a way to get him out, appeasing his captor until he had his freedom.

But was Anders meaning to leave him in the beginning, regardless of the outcome of the fight? The last time he saw Anders, they were in Hunterfell and his friend had uttered a quick apology before putting Hawke to sleep. What would have happened if he hadn't been captured? Anders had expressed his apprehension of their traveling together, after all. Hawke was the one that practically forced himself into Anders' lap; he wouldn't be surprised at all if Anders intentionally ditched him at the first opportunity.

He wasn't about to give up, not yet. But the day left him slightly deflated. It was nearing sunset, and as the marketplace emptied out, he decided to take the long walk back to the Circle. The things he bought this afternoon should have been delivered by now, and though looking at them probably wouldn't help his mood, at least it would give him something to do.

"Excuse me," Hawke muttered as he bumped right into a man near the twin pillars.

This was utterly familiar, thieves bumping into him in a market. He felt for his coin purse; it was still there. But as he took another step, a rustle of something stiff beneath a shoulder belt told him that something hadn't been taken from him. It was added.

With new respect for the network of spies that operated right out in the open, Hawke waited until he reached his room, and then only behind a screen as he disrobed did he check for the new addition. Under his right feather pauldron he found a single, small slip of paper the size of his palm. It took mere seconds to read it, and upon reading it he hurried to throw on his traveling clothes and he barrelled straight back out his door.

It was cut from a familiar image: a wanted poster of Anders, a square taken from the text where his name and his crimes were listed.

And on the blank side, someone had drawn with great detail in black ink the image of a Vhenadahl tree.


	16. Remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris remembers his time in Tevinter.

He could have phased through the collar if he wished, heavy with its chains and jewels. It wasn't enchanted in any way; a mere mark of his servitude, his master's showing of his pet's loyalty, a mockery of Qunari custom.

It wasn't even authentic. Qunari would not have adorned such things.

 _Wear this for me, my pet_ , his magister drawled, following the curve of lyrium down from his elbow to his fingers.

They would triumph over the horned men and take their warriors, collar their arvaraad the way they would their saarebas. The collar was disproportionately large on his shoulders, the metal warmed to his skin and grew too hot under the sun, but Fenris bore it.

For his master he would have done anything. There was a bond between them that ran deep as blood, in each pulse of lyrium flare, in the flush of magic under his skin. As the double doors closed behind them and his master tipped his chin up for a kiss, not even Hadriana's hateful glances could erase this flutter in his chest.

_He loves me._

*

Fenris woke and scowled at the darkening sky.

He vowed to remain awake on their week-long walk to Minrathous, but that was impossible considering that they walked for fourteen hours a day. The dwarf snored softly from the other side of their smouldering fire, and Fenris knew that it wasn't Varric's fault that he was allowed to sleep while Fenris wasn't, but he felt anger towards him nonetheless.

And that alone was infuriating.

He was so sure back in Hossberg, where they set off, it was Feynriel that sent him the nightmares, but now with the days blurring into nights and the exhaustion casting the world in a fog, Fenris doubted his intuition. Napping for a few minutes midday should have brought no visions; the mage couldn't very well spend all day and night waiting to strike in his dreams.

These were no visions, sent by a demon. Ironic that he last encountered those in Feynriel's fade, a dream realm riddled with pride and desire. What he was shown then were idealistic images where he triumphed over his oppressors; what he saw now were slivers of memory, no more than mere glimpses and sometimes not even that.

Flashes of moonlight glinting off pearly teeth; the scent of musk and sandalwood oil; clouds and roaring thunder, the skies grey and heavy with rain.

His sister's laughter as a slip of a child in the courtyard of their master, who was not Danarius.

He saw an uprising, and he was in the thick of it, scything through mages carrying a greatsword not nearly as heavy as the one he had now. He wasn't as strong then, possessing only wiry Elvhen strength. Scenes of raining ashes, the smell of burning flesh and the satisfaction of cutting down those who used to command him.

Fenris did not see this in his dreams, but he could guess what happened next; the magisters laid aside their differences long enough put down the revolt, corralling the rebellious ones.

He had fought against his masters once, and this made him proud, somewhat, that he wasn't always the snivelling pet by Danarius' side.

*

The Imperium learned something from the Qunari at least; waste nothing. Even rebellious slaves had their purpose, and that was to remind the rest of the chattel that revolution was a bad idea.

Beaten and half-broken Leto stared sightlessly down from the stake he was tied upon. It was over now, what remained of his very short life destined for the mines where he would be whipped as he worked until he choked on the coal dust that turned his lungs black. So much blood running through the gutters, all his friends dead, and nothing had changed.

His sister, his mother, they told him that it was futile, and _why was he throwing their lives away for nothing_ , but he had ignored them because death was no worse than the life they were leading, in his eyes.

Other slaves were beaten as well, and they cowered to their new masters, begging for forgiveness, willing to take on the lowliest stations to redeem themselves. Leto was proud and unapologetic; he had done nothing wrong. A slave's life was suffering and pain, only death brought release. Was it so surprising that he would rather die than remain a slave?

One day, it would all change. Too bad he wouldn't live to see it.

*

"You all right, elf?"

 _Varric._ Fenris reminded himself and the brief glow disappeared from his hands, "no."

He told Varric to wake him if he was caught asleep, but if the dwarf thought it appropriate to classify him as broody before, he could well be called homicidal now. All told he had slept maybe four hours this entire week. Their original plan was to catch up with Hawke, but that was impossible since he was on the open sea. In hindsight they should have waited for Isabela before crossing into Tevinter on their own, but the urgency of his dreams made him want to press on.

With each step he faced the terrors of his servitude, the reasons why he feared the land so much in the first place, but he also reclaimed bits of his past he thought long lost.

"Any sign of the dreamer?" Varric asked.

"No. But I have these ... flashbacks," Fenris said. Varric was more of Hawke's friend than his, but he had no one else he could confide to. Even forming sentences were becoming difficult, as though he was in a drunken daze. "I'm beginning to remember my life before, before these."

He stretched his arms out in front of him, showing the undersides where the white lyrium lines drew over his veins. Hawke knew, so he was sure that Varric also knew, but he hadn't admitted it out loud: his memories went back ten years at most. His capacity to control himself, to love, to hate, was young as a child's.

"On the one hand, it feels like I'm getting back the life I thought I lost," he continued, looking down at his hands and not at his friend. "But I fear they may not be real. These things I remember, they could be created in the fade and sent to me by the mage. And that is a line of thinking I do not wish to contemplate."

They had to put out their fire; they were now on the side of the Medaine that faced Tevinter, and the eternal flame of Andraste could be seen for miles around, an ironically magical bonfire that lit up even the plains below. As beautiful as that was, the land they camped on was desolate, lifeless since the First Blight. Fenris leant against a rocky cliff face, waiting for the dwarf to say something, anything, even a jest to break this silence.

Varric sighed, and he took a breath as though to speak, to make a joke of things, but changed his mind at the last minute and shook his head.

"I know you tend to think the worst of mages," he began, putting one hand up to hold off any immediate protests. "And yes, you have perfectly valid reasons. But we've both met Feynriel. Far as I remember he's just a terrified kid trying to get by - it takes a seriously twisted mind to come up with ... that."

This hatred was poison and he knew it, but he hadn't learned how to deal with it in all these years despite his own friendship with a mage. In Fenris was a constant, niggling doubt that he was being manipulated by the mage, because that was what mages did - and he himself had fallen easily into Danarius' trap all those years ago.

With danger at his back it was no time to start trusting. But to doubt his own mind would be paralysing. When was the last time he felt so trapped?

"You may be right," Fenris conceded, hoping the words made it so.

*

It was better if he had died then. Being cut down in battle was a clean death, a quick death, a heroic death.

The slaver bought him with one single gold coin; his life was worth less than dirt now, the celebrations over and his public humiliation done with. The man had tried talking to him, but Leto had adamantly ignored his words, refusing food and water. Why did he bother? There was no fight left in Leto. Everyone he cared about was dead and he was a slave again; the revolution a waste of life, less than a ripple in the grand scheme of things.

Weak as he was, the ferocity he had shown in the battle earned him some respect. They tied his ankles to his wrists and left him on the floor, with a loaf of bread and some cheese near his mouth in case he changed his mind.

He had given up all hope. For a slave, hope was a delusion all on its own to begin with.

"Leto," and he curled in on himself some more. Impossible. She was dead, they were all dead, and the blame fell on him for involving himself in a fool cause. "Why do you have him tied up like this?"

"Unlike the magisters, I don't have magic to protect myself," the gruff voice of a man, the same Leto heard trying to reach him for days. "And I've been told that your son is a dangerous man. You can untie him if you wish."

She'd had a hard life, and the wrinkles that crowded her brow came from more than time passing. They had taken her blood, and each taking shortened her life. She had years, at most, no more than ten.

Her hands were cool on his rope burns, and he clutched at her fingers, disbelieving that they were real, flesh and bone and not of the fade.

"I'm here, my boy," cool hand on his brow, and yet his vision too was clouded. She shushed him as he protested, his words barely coherent.

"Varania..."

"She is alive, as well."

Leto wondered how, but his sister had always been resourceful. Maybe she hid them. Maybe they had help. He had no word from them since he abandoned them to join the rebels. He knew that if he failed they would have had to pay the price, executed as immediate members of his family, but it seemed to matter little at the time.

They drank to victory. They bled in defeat, life blood running thick and red as their wine - from elsewhere, made with the strength of freed men.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, but it was an empty apology. He had already sacrificed them. He had no kin.

"You did it for us, for all of us. It's all right, Leto."

Next he woke he found himself unbound, and he raised the bowl to his lips and drank down the cold, thin broth. He had not found another reason to live, not yet, but maybe he would live long enough to find out.

"Stubborn boy. Finally decided to live, I see."

"I have nothing to say to you, slaver," Leto said.

"If you were smart," the slaver took his empty bowl and replaced it with a full one, meat and vegetables floating in thick, hearty stew. No fish. Mother probably told him Leto's preferences. "You could at least try to ingratiate yourself to the man who took you out of the refuse pit."

He sounded kind, but even magisters could be kind, to keep their slaves unbalanced, never knowing if they should be expecting cruelty next. But Leto hadn't eaten properly for days, so he shovelled down the food, eating like a wolf that had to fight with an entire pack for his meal.

 _If he was smart,_ which he was not, that was the problem. A smart slave kept his head down and waited for an opportunity to escape. A dumb slave joined the uprising and died like the rest. He wasn't dead, but living was not a mercy.

Leto knew this man, and had seen him save slaves from the refuse pit - and he did not do it out of kindness. The slaves he saved from near death had an obligation to remain loyal not only to him, but the masters that Saul passed them on to later. He would ignore a suffering man at noon, waiting until sundown to get a lower price and an eternally grateful slave.

Sometimes they died in the waiting.

No doubt he had hovered in the distance while Leto was whipped and beaten, as black flies buzzed about his wounds, and hoped that meant his new slave would thank him for the rescue.

"I know your kind, slaver. I will not be fooled by this act of _generosity_."

"Then you should know that I'm not trying to win your trust," the slaver flashed a bright smile, feral and cold, and Leto was once again reminded that this man had no conscience. And how could he? He bought and sold people for coin.

"You've wasted your gold," Leto said, pushing his bowl across the hard tiles and wiping at his mouth with the back of one hand. "I will simply kill any magister I come across. And you do have your repuation to uphold."

"That, I do. Which is why I don't plan on selling you."

"What did you buy me for then if not to sell me to the highest bidder?" Leto asked. Then his eyes widened with horror, "I will not be the hound at your feet. I'd rather die first."

And the slaver laughed, throwing his head back and exposing his throat. Leto was half tempted to tear it out. He was weak, but he still had teeth.

"For some, that is the only way. But I'm afraid even I have no hope of collaring you, wild thing. On the other hand, you have a death wish," his smile was open and too kind, and it did not fit with what Leto knew of the man. "I mean to grant it."

"Then you should have left me to die in the market," he bared his teeth and glared.

The slaver's eyes narrowed, and through the thin slits he was scrutinized. Leto's moral superiority was suddenly reduced to nothing, and it had to be an illusion, a trick of some sort. To enslave another was wrong, or so he was told by his friend who led their rebellion. Under the pinpoints of those eyes, however, the most stauchly held beliefs seemed to dissipate into smoke in the fire of his anger, then even that extinguished.

"Do you care nothing for your family, then?" He sneered.

Leto had tried to ignore that part of the bargain he made with himself. It was how the magisters controlled the difficult ones, the ones who were trained as soldiers and not as weakling servants. The children were raised with their parents and their siblings, and family was used against them. Yoke the mother and the son would follow.

But if none ever rise up in rebellion, then the magisters would have won. His mother, his sister, he had turned them aside and left them to die the moment he raised his blade against a magister.

It seemed so clear at the time; someone had to use violence to change things, and then the elves would live free of their mage masters. Theirs was an act of desperation and sacrifice, and they might not see its end, but without that sacrifice they would never be free.

He could fight. He could rail. But he had no retorts because the slaver was right. Even if he was to say he cared, so what? His actions proved otherwise.

"That is none of your concern," Leto gritted out.

"You _can_ still free them. Oh yes," he said, as Leto turned his doubtful expression towards him. "Their master is hosting a grand tournament. The prize is, well, let's just say it's as likely to kill you as the tourney itself. If you win, you get a boon from the magister."

There was also the distinct possibility that he would lose, but that was left unsaid. If he lost then he would have the honorable death he craved.  Leto had nothing to lose, save his life.

It was worth exactly one gold coin.

"And what do you get out of this arrangement?" Leto's eyebrows came together suspiciously. "You're not exactly known for your charity."

"I get a finder's fee if you win, from the magister."

"And if I lose?"

"You won't lose," the slaver laughed softly.

This man was a master manipulator. He was famous for his ability to incite loyalty, his methods speculated about behind closed doors. Leto was getting the brunt of that charm now, and he was suddenly aware of how mages must have felt in the fade as they encountered desire demons. If he was offered what he wanted most in the world, how could he have said no?

In exchange for the shambles he had made of his life, he was offered redemption. Leto was not coward enough to run.

If he had known he would survive the prize, then maybe, just maybe, he would have bitten off his tongue and choked on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm caught up to the meme! Yay!
> 
> And I have the next two chapters lined up, but tentacles ate my last update. :|


	17. Spes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is me getting back into the swing of writing again.
> 
> This is also me apologizing profusely for the extended hiatus.
> 
> But I'm back, and I don't freeze at the keyboard wondering what word comes next any more. If I ever do this again, you can hit me with a hammer at tumblr. I'm going by the same handle there.

Waiting was a slave's lot.

Anders marked the hours by the way the sun painted the floor, sharp tilt of brightness on straw, earthern floor peeking out from in between stalks, dark, blurring the passing of time.

In his last years in Kirkwall, time skipped - light stuttered on windowsills and he woke exhausted in the day wondering where he had been. The hours moved faster then, but now that he was able to command his own limbs in time of his own, he had forgotten how.

The distance from his master cast an uneasiness about him, his arms grasp tight about his chest by habit now that the ropes were gone, and each time he tried to speak the words caught in his lungs. It was not the panic he felt that morning, when his master left him alone in their bedchamber, that was a sharp hiss that filled his ears and made his stomach churn; this was drawn out, a slight buzz behind his eyes, tasting a smidgen like magic.

His collar was warmer than his skin. Perhaps it was magic.

But by now Anders wished it was something other than an outside force that linked them, him and his master, two halves of a whole.

Florian snapped his fingers in front of Anders, bringing him back to himself.

The room rushed back; Anders looked down at the plate placed in front of him. Fresh bread, fish baked so long it was brown and curled on the edges, whole fruit. It must have been noon, or just past noon, with the light coming sraight down the holes in the ceiling, and Florian sitting across from him with sweat on his temples and a sheen above his lip.

Florian had a knot between his brows, though that was there near every time he locked gazes with Anders.

There could have been a number of reasons why he looked at Anders with such disdain, and Anders was no stranger to an ex-slave's prejudice for what he was. He held his tongue.

It was a much easier thing to do now than ever before.

To stay silent had become a habit. To speak; that took effort. His mind was empty, save for his master's touch and his master's eyes and the taste of him and the memories that overwhelmed even from the slightest, smallest reminder, like fresh bread and sweet mangoes, their scent a tickle on his lips.

And he would not speak of these things, not to Florian.

"He did warn me that you're a little off."

Anders looked up, sharply, too fast. His hand jostled a fork, nearly pushing it off the small table that wasn't even fully flat in the first place, tilted, propped up with a brick on an uneven floor.

"I'm sorry," Anders said, quietly.

"The slave thing, I can understand," Florian chewed on his bread, and he did not use a plate. He held the bread in one hand and a whole apple in the other.

Anders wanted the apple. There were fresh apples, in Kirkwall. It must have travelled on a ship, to be here so ripe and red.

He pulled his gaze away, back to his lone plate, and took a bite of his bread.

"I'm not your master. And at the moment, you don't really have one," Florian reached out, lightning quick, and traded his apple for Anders' mango without a sound.

Anders felt a drop of sweat drip down over his chin. It tickled, but he did not wipe it away with his hands. His hands were bare, unbound.

"Terrifying, isn't it?" Florian looked sidelong up at him, his chin on crossed arms.

"No," and he swallowed the next word back into his stomach, back to that burning compulsion to answer when questioned, and the word master to go along with the answer.

It wasn't fear that compelled him. Love was obsession was love; Justice was no longer there to distract him from how much Anders could love. Fear was binding, when he was young, Justice came later. The shackles he chose, when he did not know what he was choosing.

He lost far too much of himself in the bargain. He did not stop to think, perhaps this time he exchanged the fade spirit for a literal set of chains.

Florian placed the apple in his hand, and Anders finally took a bite. It was not as sweet as mangoes or figs, mealy from travelling, but it was a taste of the past, nevertheless.

Varric used to bring him apples and cheese, by the baskets. He also brought the occasional 'lost' lyrium shipment, when there were especially trying days where the mines caved in or the foundry exploded. Even Merrill was there, bandaging wounds after he'd sewn them shut.

Anders had friends, then. At least, people who valued him enough to not report him to the templars.

"Anders, listen to me," Florian's voice was velvet and heavy when he wanted it that way, when he wanted you to listen. "Everyone falls in love with Saul."

That should have hurt, but it was instead a dull irritation, an itch. He saw it when Marcello was saved from the refuse pit. He saw it again as a few short words turning new pain and distrust into affection, on a soiled bath house floor.

The question was never whether he would fall in love with Saul, but when; on the occasion, and this was a rare event, that one did not love him as a lover, then one would love him as a friend.

"I know, I don't care." Anders mouthed the words to his plate, hoping Florian would not hear him. Hoping he would not hear the lie himself.

"You can't know. It's hard to hear how out of tune you are when someone else is singing along."

Anders wanted to say that he did not understand bardic metaphors, not being a bard himself. But he would later recall this and wonder why he did not compare it to battling alongside Hawke, where his fire was joined by Hawke and Hawke's storm was joined by his and it was a confusion of magic, neither knowing where one ended and the other began.

Sometimes, Hawke did this on purpose, strengthening his spells, mirroring his words.

Even with spells he barely knew.

Anders shifted his attention again, from the apple to the bread, from old memories to fresh, yesterday's news. Smooth, soft hands holding his own as he drifted off to sleep, waking alone as the dawn came and sweet dreams turning to nightmares as the scent of his master faded into morning mist.

"He's right, you know. You're more than a little off," Florian retreated back to his edge of the table, his immaculate hands beneath his chin. "But it's nice to save a spot in there to run off to."

He was beginning to hate that voice; Florian sounded so sure and calm, confident of every word, cocky, even. Other people might have called it a voice of reason, but to Anders, it was doubt; doubt of the truths that kept him sane.

Anders nodded, and did not voice his trepidation. And if it was someone else sitting in front of him, he was sure he hid it from his expression, as well, but Florian was not just anyone.

"I can rattle that brain of your some more, but you'll just shut down, I'm afraid."

The apple was almost gone. Anders left the core primly standing on its end on the plate. It fell over immediately.

It was hard to balance anything if the ground was uneven.

"Why are you telling me these things?" Anders finally squeezed out the words, breathing beneath water, speaking against the pressure. Speaking out of turn was drowning and pain and thorns in his veins; it was a shock that it was not.

But he felt it anyway, a ghost pain, and he shuddered.

"I don't know," Florian had finished his bread, and he sliced the mango into threes, drawing diamonds in one flat surface carefully, more careful than he had been with Anders. "So I can watch a mage squirm, perhaps."

"Perhaps?" Anders echoed, finding comfort in the expected cruelty. This was easier than finding a space where he could trust Florian.

It was never a good idea to trust a man who pushed a dagger tip into your neck.

Florian sliced off the neat cubes of fruit and placed half of it on Anders' plate. The rest he ate off the point of his dagger, not a drop of nectar down his chin.

Once, a long time ago, Anders wore such armour. There wasn't a single chink in it, not a single weak spot, or so until he met a Fade spirit who knew exactly where to worm into its edges. Words had power over Anders, even then.

It was a different sort of armour he wore in Tevinter, an eager, obediant facade in the stead of flippant jests, but its purpose was the same.

But Florian knew Anders' defenses were riddled with holes.

"There is a small chance that I simply feel sorry for you," he said, finally, as he prepared to go out - to leave Anders alone. "There's a word in Tevene - _spes_ \- the rest of Thedas translates it to hope. But in Tevinter, spes is not considered a good thing."

Anders was not sure at all that he wanted to know, but Florian stood there smiling his uncomfortably Darin-like smile, and he asked, "why?"

"It really means 'expectation,'" Florian reached out and grabbed his lute, placing it in the sling behind him, holding Anders' gaze with his bardic brand of magic and his smile, one from which Anders would not dare to look away. "The word 'hope' doesn't exist in Tevene. Spes is from an old myth; the spirit Spes was unleashed in the beginning of the world along with all the illnesses and bad things - greed, avarice, the list is long so I'll spare you - and this thing you call 'hope' was given to us so that we'll put up with the rest.

"You hoped a rescue that never came, and that made you want to wait; and now you hope to see Saul even after he sells you, and somehow you can live on that. You won't bite out your tongue or starve yourself or even misbehave, because you know that if you're good, one day you can be free."

Anders listened, and he did not understand, not the way Florian seemed to understand. "But you're free, aren't you?"

But Florian only laughed, hiding his mouth behind his hand.

Then he was almost alone, but for one guard sitting near a lone soup stall outside the door and another beneath his window.

It felt too much like solitary confinement, with more room. Anders retreated to the few books Florian owned, old Tevinter tales, with notes scribbled in the margins, eerily similiar to old Ferelden folklore. He found the story of the spirit of hope, and in her escape from confinement in the Void, released the demons, the desire and sloth and pride, among others, into the mortal world.

Not hope. Spes. Expectation. But Anders could not see the difference.

Sunset had him waiting by the doors; it was dark, and he could not afford any light. Anders was a secret, or more accurated descibed, smuggled goods.

Then the moon rose higher above the buildings over the alienage, new and faint, and his master was near, a physical pulsing of heat in his collar, faint but definite. When his master pushed the door open slow and tentative, as if expecting him to be right behind it - and his master did not wish to hurt him.

And it was a struggle to not call him this, to not call him anything at all. Anders had no master. Anders could not call him master but he could not use his name either; it felt disrespectful even now, far away from the center of the city, far from where Saul walked as though his feet never quite touched the ground.

Anders' hands spoke for him, slipping under Saul's loose tunic, and they pressed together in the open doorway, inky blackness surrounding them within and without. The lanterns on the far side of the tree had been lit, only making their corner of the alienage too dark by comparison.

As saul drew him out into the mud streets, out to lean up against the rough bark of a wide Vhenadahl, he never stopped to question. Not for a single second.

He had waited since dawn for a taste of that mouth, for the heat of Saul's hands on his chest, on his shoulders, behind his knees.

Waiting was a slave's lot.

At the end of waiting, there was no rescue, no fanfare, no vengeance of the Maker; there was only Saul, and what he considered deliverance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spes is latin for hope. The myth is the well known Pandora myth, but in the original myth, Elpis (the Greek word originally used) did not escape the jar of Pandora. Here, Elpis / Spes did escape, but I kept the original, ambiguous meaning in the Greek myth.


	18. Vhenadahl

It was late autumn bordering on winter, though that meant little, here in the north. Broad, paper-thin leaves fallen from the Vhenadahl crunched softly beneath Anders' sandals. The night was so dark it was substantial, and one had to wade his way through it; new moon hidden by the leaves above, silent save for the sluggish breeze.

The muddy streets had dried over the weeks he spent here in the alienage.

How long had it been? Each day began so similar to the last that he no longer counted - that excuse would not hold, not even to Anders, much less to - no one, no one he had to account to any longer. Saul held his arm, leading him forwards, steady and fast enough that he could not know where he was led. Not until Anders tripped over a thick root, tumbling forward and landing on Saul's chest, on a jeweled collar pressing cool against his cheek. 

His master - there was the slip, and Anders was glad for the silence for he would have made the slip out loud - reached up to play with Anders' hair, loosening the tie of his long ponytail, draping strands of gold silk down over his shoulders.

Anders' borrowed tunic was shapeless, and the belt that cinched his waist a long soft strip of leather loosely tied. Saul pulled him closer by it, then his mouth closed over Anders', lips meeting perfectly in the dark. As if blindly, lanterns on the far side of the trunk casting them in deeper shadows than the night and their eyes closed, Saul turned them both, and their fingers entwined as he pushed Anders gently against the wood, and guided his hand to grip with fingertips to hold himself in place with the grooves in the bark.

The elves had painted it red, Anders took the image from memory, red like arterial blood - rather to hide real blood or to remind them of life or vengeance, he could not know - and smooth to the touch; and though unyielding, it did not hurt him when he leaned against it.

Saul stroked fingers over his chin, thumbed across his evening stubble, and tipped his head back with firm pressure; Anders went willingly, exposing his throat. His eyes caught a hint of moonlight through the canopy of leaves above him, too new in the cycle to pierce the dark.

They were looking for him. For a time he had forgotten, but they had not. 

Before Justice, Anders always ran from his problems - or perhaps he always met them head on, though even he was not sure which. It was an instinct that he could not cull even now.

He ran, into Saul's arms, into the spreading heat down his chest, where Saul's teeth grazed the join of neck and shoulder, where the edges of his tunic peeled back. Anders bit his lip too hard and he could not breathe in fast enough; His chest rose and fell in a rapid staccato against a hand idly playing with a nipple, a touch so light it tickled.

There was a breeze, dry and hot, too slow to sting even with all the grit it carried, but it lit the tree with the rustling of leaves. Anders let out a sigh, hiding it amidst the sound, as Saul pulled at the laces of the rough trousers, his knuckles running down the side of Anders' cock.

The rub of dry cotton made him shudder. Anders breathed in deep and filled his lungs with the light woodsy scent of perfumed hair. Like each night that came before in the alienage, he tried in vain to capture it - Saul's stubble rasping on his own and soft skin beneath, confident hands light on his chest, pushing beneath his trousers to stroke along his hip.

The next day it would be all fog, thick and impenetrable in his mind, barely enough to keep him calm until the night when Saul came, giving him a sedative for his conscience.

Saul shushed him, lips slanted on lips, teasing his mouth open, as though taunting him, feeding him a moan through a brush of his tongue. And as Saul's hand finally pushed the trousers down and they pooled around Anders' ankles, Anders leaned back a little more, braced his body against the rough trunk, let it leave faint impressions on his thighs. Then he hummed into Saul's mouth, as his hand wrapped around Anders, and his cock rubbed against Anders, warm and smooth with all its hard ridges, slowly heating up in his grip.

They stopped kissing, but it was only a brief second before fingers were pushing between Anders' lips, tip of a thumb tickling his tongue, a little salty and moist from touching him. The taste flushed his cheeks, bringing a blush and a tingle, and he tried to memorize this too; licking over Saul's fingers, letting them explore, trusting in their owner not go too far. When they were deemed wet enough they were quickly wrapped around him, around both of them, and Anders could not control himself as he lunged forward hungrily, catching stubble and chin blindly in the dark.

And he immediately drew back, biting his lip, biting back that sudden impulse; but Saul again shushed him with kisses to his cheek to remind him, _it's perfectly all right to show me you want me,_ and then his mouth was covered and just in time as Anders gasped and the sound swallowed.

He thought he heard the leaves rustling again, and around him instead of above, though he could not tell if it came from the way Saul stood straight while Anders' back bowed against the tree, always looking up, waiting, receiving his master.

They moved together slowly, Anders' one foot pushing on a root, muscles straining and shaking with tension. There was no hurry, it seemed; but they could not move too fast either, spit not slicking them enough for quick release.

Instead they burned together, Anders fighting the urge to rut against Saul as he held them loosely in his grasp and they slid against each other, warm and smooth and rubbing too hard along the shaft.

It wouldn't have been enough, not compared to their typical evening in their bed, but Saul moved away and kissed over Anders' cheekbones, arriving near his earlobe whispering, _come,_ a huff of heat and a tongue to chase the single word. The hand that wasn't wrapping around them climbed over Anders' chest and a hand closing over his mouth.

It was that easy to let go, to follow a command; that easy to move from waiting and wanting to his sac drawing up tight in seconds, biting down to stop himself from crying out.

And it wasn't what he wanted, too quick and unsatisfying and horrifying to know that Saul's words owned him even if he denounced his claims, but in this second it was only skin stretched over his cock tight as a drum, and his channel closing down over nothing on noticeable emptiness, and his want only growing as he spurted into Saul's hand, growing as he softened and he whimpered, muted and vibrating against Saul's fingers.

His knees felt weak but his hands held on by a silent command that wanted them there. Anders lolled back against the trunk, and a hand moved from his mouth down to his chest replaced by Saul's lips, hard and demanding, bruising, sucking at his lower lip until he moaned.

 _Turn around,_ so quiet, not even a whisper, mere shapes of words against his lips.

Anders could almost make out the edges of Saul's jaw, his face a patch of shadow against the night; the grey in his temples had gone near silver lately, and Anders imagined that the moonlight caught in it, the way events and people caught and came to be a part of Saul.

Anders took one last look - too dark, and anything he caught could only have been from memory - before he turned, his hands back on the trunk; powdery paint flaked and stuck on his fingers.

Saul was rubbing hard on his tailbone, a spot that made Anders weak in the knees. He breathed sideways on the bark, and the wood was sure to leave marks on his cheek later. Then there was seed on him, growing cold, Saul's fingers quickly dabbing outside and leaving. His hands still hooked into the grooves of the trunk, his knee resting on an outstretched root, Anders pushed back against his lover like an offering.

Then Saul was hard and hot and pushing at his entrance, hands on Anders' hips to hold him. Anders felt his ears redden, blood rushing in so fast it prickled at his cheeks. 

In the villa he no longer felt this, this forceful intrusion and the sharp pain; the plug he had to wear took care of the stretching, and Anders did not, in the faraway past, count it as a part of sex he enjoyed. But here they could not afford certain conveniences nor time, and somehow Saul made this good - pain offset by kisses on his ear, Saul ducking under the veil of Anders' hair to nibble on his neck, reminding him to stay quiet even as he broke through, relentlessly pushing past tightness and pain until he was sheathed.

Anders' cheek was moist and he could not remember shedding tears, but Saul was already kissing them away, leaning over him, chest pressed against his back, sweat cooling on Anders' skin heating up again. And they were joined, hip to hip and chest to back and finally their lips met and Anders realized that he would miss even this.

Perhaps he would miss the pain most of all.

He clamped down just to feel his heartbeat through their closeness, this fullness that he missed moments before, and Saul's hands gripped his hips tighter in answer, the signal given but he was not ready, he was still too tight and it would hurt but Anders moved his hand closer and mouthed his knuckles, biting down at the first hard thrust.

It was never easy, never slow and gentle with Saul, but Anders already loved too much. 

Love wasn't easy, either.

But Saul didn't give him time to think. He quickly found the angle to jolt them both, the spot that made Anders close up and tighten, Saul gasping softly at the sensation. His teeth grazed across Anders' shoulder as Anders bit his knuckles. Anders' voice rang out all too often in their rooms, over the balcony and into the grounds, and the restriction imposed here was illicit, exciting in its own way.

His hands were free and bound by will; in another life, in another dark corner, Anders would have reached down and tugged himself to the rhythm of the body behind him. But he was not chasing a quick finish, he had learned by the lessons this man taught him, and with each brush across his sweet spot Saul added to the heat, fanning the flames that made sweat pool in Anders' collar bone. His hands began to slip on Anders' hips, and he moved them, without losing a single beat. They traveled up Anders' arms even as they laid flat against the tree, hot on him, his breath not hitching at all from the touch, and suddenly they were out of sync, one heart beating faster than the other.

Anders was not sure if it was the added intimacy of the touch, of how Saul wrapped around him, that made his breathing quicken. It was closer to fear, as his heart raced ahead and sweat dripped over his brow and into his eyes, stinging his vision that saw nothing but black.

It was less than panic and a little more than doubt, his stomach fluttering the wrong way, and for a split second - one insignficant breath to another - everything felt wrong. The air was too warm and the lack of light suffocated and he was drowning, his hands slipping, in the dark.

Saul caught him, hand over Anders' mouth and arm over his chest, fingers creeping over one nipple. Anders took a deep breath, and when the pain came, sharp, as fingers pinched over the hardened nub, he breathed out and bit down on the webbing of Saul's hand, letting relief flood over him, let it tingle over his scalp and down his spine.

He was soft between his legs but pain brought him twitching against his thigh. Then Saul was pulling out and turning him, rough and no warning, pushing Anders' arms up to loop over shoulders, pushing Anders' back against hardened bark, scraping hard down his back where the grooves would have cut him if not for the tunic he still wore. 

And he had no choice but to cling to Saul as he was breached again, one leg lifted to accommodate him, then another after they joined, so fast he winced and he held on with his ankles sitting on the small of Saul's back, his heels slipping on silk. He was off the ground, knees hooked over elbows and hands lifting him, parting him, spreading him.

This was better - this was comfortingly out of his hands. Anders could only try his best to hold on as Saul picked up the pace and struggle not to moan aloud. Not that it mattered, with the slap of Saul's hips against the backs of Anders' thighs, the sound of his cock sliding in and Anders' ankles slipping off Saul's back and rubbing against fabric at his waist to rest on his lower back again.

So when Saul pushed all the way in to grind against him, Anders' cock trapped between their bodies and fed too much friction, he clutched Saul ever closer with his arms and tried in vain to bury a moan against his shoulder. It escaped through clenched teeth and pursed lips but still it came, Saul pushing him back with his cock, with a turn of his head to catch his lips. Weightless, Anders looked up and saw a sliver of a moon passing high and beyond the leaves, a blanket of stars.

Being in Saul's arms, even if bound, was a lot like flying. Floating. Free.

His ankles were locked and his arms taut but Anders could not hold on forever. Saul's stubble scraped over his chin and he was asking Anders to let go, not in words this time, but in the urgency of his thrusts and the nips on his neck that left marks behind. His presence left no room for doubt; and they could not have been any closer but that did not stop them from trying. Anders chocked back a sigh, and he let the tremors overcome him, let the coil of want he held all day unfurl in a rush, in the quavering of his limbs.

It was nothing like what he was used to, and it was unsettling how warm and sweet the way Saul held him, kissed him, as though he was a precious, fragile thing.

And he might have been afraid - of feelings they both left unsaid, of affection not returned - but he leapt anyway. His ankles slipped off of each other; he knew Saul well enough by now to read his expressions by touch, and he was smiling against Anders' lips.

It was not long before Saul too slowed and throbbed and grunted into him, pounding the last thrusts so hard Anders had to bite his lip to stop himself from crying out. And yet, before they had a chance to breathe again, before sweat cooled on their bodies and warmth faded and their position became too uncomfortable, Saul kissed him, teasing Anders' tongue out from between his lips, letting Anders' feet touch the ground, freeing his hands to bury his fingers deep in a mess of blond hair. Saul held him closer, chest to chest, ignoring the sticky mess between them. Too close, this, and Anders' stomach was full of butterflies.

He already loved too much.

His heart had been broken once, and though later he thought it a good decision, he still found it harder this time. Saul drew back, only to kiss him again, pecks on his eyelids that made him smile too wide, a kiss on his nose, and Anders giggled - a blind man could not miss his nose in the dark. Then he laughed softly, for of course -

"I love you," he said, flushed and giddy.

He could only imagine a matching blush in return, dark rose beneath grey eyes, perhaps a little shocked for once.

He could not imagine Saul saying it back, and he did not expect it from this man. Actions were enough for some; Anders liked words. Saul gave him a tentative kiss, then, lips barely touching and lingering like static electricity, a touch of shock and too much sensation in a short kiss. His arms wound tight around Anders, pulling him away and off balance forwards, and as Anders wrapped his arms around Saul in return, fingertips brushing his hair at his nape, Saul seemed to laugh.

Not a laugh he'd heard, but a laugh in his chest, a flutter and little jumps, more alive and less controlled than Anders had ever felt from him.

If there had been thunder, and thieves running the alleys just behind the houses, Anders would not have heard them. He was busy with the sigh rushing along the tips of his ears, happy in the moment he stood in, unbound.

When he turned them both and pressed Saul against the tree, for balance - for not stumbling over a root blind - he did not jump at the scuffling of boots, reading them as distant when they were entirely too close.

If only there was light; light enough to see Saul, to see how his eyes softened without the mask he wore. Perchance to see the questioning gaze of a man who did not understand that love was selfish, and love was more than giving the best life he could arrange to give, that sometimes love was about running away, taking what you want with you.

And as Saul heard footsteps retreat into the distance, out through the gates of the alienage, and he allowed Anders to touch him, to explore him where he had not allowed the touch of anyone for so long, he caught Anders' lips in his own, and kissed him; with all the regret of things that might have been.

With eyes wide open.


	19. One Day - From Dawn to Noon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Convergence.

_Nearing dawn, and the moon was still a pale line hanging._

If Hawke squinted hard enough he could see the stars. Hope had always been distant, but Hawke thought them closer in his rooms at the top of the tower, when he first arrived in Mirathous. They seemed farther than ever now.

If Anders was to ask him how long he had been standing on the balcony, staring out at the lightening sky - well, he would not ask, and frankly it was true the night was darkest before dawn - he could not know. Time was immeasurable in heartbreak, but it was not so much that he lost track of one moment to the next as much as it did not matter any longer if he kept time, one way or another.

He still wore his armour, a set of soft black mercenary leathers he bought on a whim in Nevarra, sweat-stained and dusty. They did not look like much, but they had time to mould to him, to stretch around him; the soles of his boots were silent on gravel and stone, and light seemed to die on its surface. 

They were night leathers. The day would have heated the skin until the metal beneath bent and burned. But the night cloaked him still, no torches on his balcony and the moon barely a sliver; and by the time the sun was high enough to hurt him, he planned on changing into more comfortable robes in the hold of a ship, sailing away, long gone.

Hawke walked by the unopened packages near his door; a few shirts and a couple of robes that did not suit his tanned skin, a single earring and him without a matching hole, a necklace with amber beads, a colour he knew so well. 

Seven years of waiting and longing and dreaming, thinking that he knew someone, and it only took three words to snap him out of his delusions. Not that those same words had not been spoken to him, and not that he wasn't the one stupid enough to refuse it, or to be too nervous - stupid - to acknowledge them. He missed his chance.

He missed his chance.

Opportunity was not a lengthy visitor.

Platitudes never did help in his hour of need.

Among the ornate clawed things that were not its peer, a silver goblet sat primly, silently regarding him with one green stone. It seemed to taunt him with its simplicity. What Hawke was, Saul was not - Hawke was a friend and a lover, and he heard once that he took the place of obssession.

For a year Hawke turned in his bed alone and sometimes not alone but not in his bed, either to a vision of Anders or someone he managed to find that looked exceedingly like him. Perhaps he had it wrong and the obsession was his own.

Garrett Hawke was a name of a champion from a place a long way off from here, across the continent. Garrett Hawke thought himself responsible for a man he loved but had no courage to make him his.

Garrett Hawke was wrong about many things.

He loosened his bracer, unwinded a short strand of hair beneath, and dropped it into the lamp. Seven years of obssession gone in a lick of flames. It was appropriate, considering how they burned together and burned out in a night; Hawke was only too blind to want to see it. 

He had the clothes on his back and some in his pack, and none of them he considered important enough to bring with him. Things could be replaced, people could not, and neither needed him to be. Thedas was a big place for someone with his abilities, especially in the middle of a civil war and a revolution; he could hide well enough when the need arose. With apostates traveling through the free marches, spreading the news of the Kirkwall annulment, there was almost no need to hide.

Still, he was a little tired of being Garrett Hawke.

Best to leave everything behind. The docks were waking before dawn, but Hawke was not a sailor and he could not judge the hour by light. But he could glean the time somewhat by dock hands unloading barrels of apples and loading crates of silk, and perhaps those bigger crates were full of people, weary and hungry from a long ocean haul. His more conscientious friends might have been concerned, but in the end, Garrett Hawke was never one to care for anything more than an arm's length away from himself.

He was not a saint or a martyr. Not even a champion, now.

If he shaved off the beard, he could leave his name behind.

He should have thought of that while still in the tower when he had at his disposal a mirror and a sharp razor; everything could have turned out very differently, then. Much later, he would blame it all on fate.

Fate was tied to the person one was, and Hawke did not think ahead - he never did.

"Garrett Hawke," Magister Darinius stood with his back to the rising sun. His hair seemed to reflect all the light as though his head was covered in oiled snakes.

It might have been difficult to see him in the dark, but he had a voice easily remembered, thin and too clean like blades so sharp they cut without soiling themselves with blood. Hawke thought he had no right to a voice like that, and remembered that he thought the same of Saul, that the slaver had no right to a smile like that, and wondered what other things he might have been wrong about.

"Magister Darinius," he echoed back a greeting, and flinched at the sound of his voice, sounding as if he had been crying - he had not, though he considered it - or at least on the verge of tears. 

"Going somewhere?"

They stood on the one pier where the unregistered ships came from the far south bringing with them exotic things - fruit, flax, wax, people - and took away the same. 

"That was a rhetorical question," Darinius answered for him, when Hawke stayed quiet.

"Since I'm the only one kept in the dark here, and I can't do anything to surprise anyone," Hawke laughed and even Varric would not have called it that, and he had seen Varric call an alienage half-elf the Viscount's love child. "Yes. I'm leaving. I'm sick of this place."

"I can't let you do that."

"Then you should have brought an army," Hawke said, already going for his staff.

Darinius showed his hands - no knife in a bloodmage's hand.

"I hadn't expected you to give up this easily, that's all. Champion of Kirkwall. Slayer of Qunari. Savior of rebel mages," Darin sucked his teeth. _Tsk. Tsk tsk tsk._ "Brought to his knees by one lowly slave."

"Are you quite done? I have a boat to catch."

"Do you realize that no one here will take you on as a passenger? Not if they want to trade in the Imperium again. We offer them a hundred gold each for fresh blood," Darin said, and with the light behind him, his expression was blank and unreadable; then he turned his head to look north to the sea, and Hawke thought he saw sadness. But he couldn't have. "What can you offer them?"

The worst part of it, Hawke decided, was that he wasn't even shocked. He wasn't angry. He wanted to pull out the rage, that feeling of helplessness that climbed and hooked in his flesh when he knew his friend was held prisoner and needed rescue, an instinctive pull in his veins as if Anders was calling to him from miles away.

Reality was not the mirror image of his expectations, but Hawke had never trusted in reality. He trusted himself, and his ability to hold on when everyone else lost hope.

Even before he met Varric, before Kirkwall took everything he cared about and Anders took the rest he built in the crumbs Kirkwall left behind, he got things done. When his father died he found odd jobs and kept the family fed; when Carver left for the army he kept Bethany from running off after him; not that it helped her any, in retrospect, but he did try.

Seven years. Hawke figured that it was about time he ran out of mana - or blood, or just the will to get up in the morning. He hadn't slept. Maybe that had something to do with it too.

It was probably how Anders felt that day they found him lying in the Planasene forest, staring up blankly as they approached, making no move to hide.

His job was done, Hawke mused, mouth twitching in a bid to smile. Except in Hawke's case he showed up at work and found himself unneeded.

Discarded.

"Nothing," but he was no longer certain to what he was referring; whether he meant the reason he came to this city or the reason he stayed so long or what he had to offer - maybe the word applied to all of these things, and most of all, himself.

Darinius, beady eyed and sharp, studied him through every transparent change. No, Hawke did not suit high society and its trap-ridden corridors, but he did not need to hear it again either. He was better suited to the land in which he was born, with a plot of land and nothing more than the change of seasons to occupy him, worrying over time to plant and sow.

Muddied boots to match his skin and the tired brown of his eyes.

"Meet with the Archon," Darinius said, as if coming to a sudden decision, but his smile was a little too sharp, the casual wave of a hand too calculated. "We can't have a Champion sneaking out of the city like a thief. It's," he walked by Hawke, patting him on the back and turning him as though he was leading a friend back into town, "bad for morale."

"And what, he'd just let me go?" Hawke huffed a little, too tired to argue and not looking forward to a walk.

"Why not? If you won't fight for us, we might as well have a nice party and send you out the front gates. Looks better than a disappearing guest any day."

Hawke found life easier if he just went along with the people with more information - it worked out with Varric, though on further examination, perhaps not - and instead of fighting and arguing that he could walk, he stepped into the litter, this one more ornate than any he had seen in Minrathous, lattice roof covered in layers upon layers of sheer material interwoven with silver thread.

It was no great shock that he fell asleep to its gentle rocking, the slaves bearing his weight taking steps in perfect march on bare feet. Nameless, faceless, wordless bodies - they might as well had been tranquil for all the emotions they showed, perfect subservient glances directed at anything but him.

When he woke, they were not where he was expecting to be.

"This isn't the Hall of Magisters," Hawke had seen the woodcut, and walked by the building on his first tour. This had tall domes and colourful mosaic on the stairs; it must take hundreds of slaves to maintain a building such as this, but it was not gold-foil and marble like the mages' towers.

"You don't expect to meet the Archon wearing that, do you?" Darinius waited by the litter as Hawke took his time, taking in the details of bronze waves worked into the walls. "Not without a proper bath first."

-

 _Seen from the East, dawn seemed darker than the night._ Light was somewhere behind them, far on the horizon. Mirathous was not yet awake. 

Isabela registered her ship. Elsewhere in Thedas, she would have skipped the paperwork, but Minrathous was an older establishment than other cities. Ferelden, the Free Marches, anywhere else was new compared to the oldest gated city, who had her business sorted out millennia ago. Everything was legal here; though Isabela figured that if one considered the buying and selling of people legal, then a bag of raw lyrium might as well had been beet sugar for all the moral implications of killing templars with the stuff.

As the dock slaves unloaded her ship, Isabela watched a line of elves bound on a single chain stumble out of a dark, dank hold. She could smell the sweat of private places in the open, even with fish carried in bins off the fishing boats, and the breeze rolling in from the sea.

Somewhere out in the open water or perhaps on land, now, there was a slaver swindling people - not that she was immune to that affliction - and some he took with him across the ocean in a ship much like that one, with a hold like that one, crammed full of people. If he was caught, the slave kept on the head of the chain would be kicked overboard, and the long line of men and women and children behind him would follow.

Slavers kept boxes of rotten potatoes and they opened them to cover the stench of human waste when they were boarded.

Isabela stroked the railing of the Siren's Call, Second of her Name. Second chances, second love, beneath her a phantom chain of slaves along the ocean floor. She was never quite sure if Fenris ever forgave her for taking it. And as a pang of regret hit her along with the stench, Isabela wasn't sure she forgave herself, either.

If she ever saw Castilon again, she would greet him with a blade to the throat. He had spent enough time free, told enough stories of how she bested him. His time was up.

She doubt she would ever see him again; Isabela found it far easier to keep promises with herself that needed not be kept.

"That's not Hawke, is it?"

"Could be," but she wasn't sure, not as sure as sharp-eyed elves who saw more than they let on, so she augmented her sight with a brass spyglass.

A parting gift that went with the ship - Hawke did help her get the ship, in the end. He probably thought less about the slaves than Isabela. She smiled crooked and small so only she knew the smile was there.

Hawke probably thought less than he talked. She turned the lens and watched it clear.

She sought the man who saved her life and lent her his staff, though not the other one, as much as she insisted. And that man with the shaggy black hair could be him. She would have to trust Merrill on this; the dark leather armour was generic and she had seen it on half a dozen dead mercs from Kirkwall to Cumberland. The staff on his back had a sword on the end - an unnecessarily sloppy disguise for a mage in Tevinter - that was rather like Hawke.

When he tried hard at a thing he often failed spectacularly.

But this one stepped into a fancy litter and as did his friend, whose garment marked him as clearly as what Anders said once, like a big sign that said "mage" stamped into his forehead. Except in this case the sign was "magister" and Isabela wrinkled her nose.

"That can't be Hawke," she turned to Merrill, face hidden under a hood, her back to a dim glow on the horizon.

Merrill pursed her lips and squinted; but the man they were watching was behind layers of fabric now and even Elvhen eyes could not see through walls, no matter how sharp.

Four slaves carried each litter. Would Hawke agree to ride in such a thing?

When the realized that she didn't know her friend well enough to answer that question, Isabela blinked the question away.

-

_Noon fell on Minrathous like a plague, giving a black cast to the shadows and burning up those who tried to catch the sun; its brilliance hid more than it revealed, leaving the blind with their thoughts in blessed ignorance._

Saul paced in the atrium alone. An hour of sleep for his birds and his Anders, spread out on his bed with a thin sheet over his shoulders, the rest of him wrapped in gold and black and air. Ceremony worn down over months found him kissing his slave with too much heart before leaving him to his drowsiness, to the schedule he had Anders accustomed to before his stay outside the villa.

The charade was at an end. He had to keep the opponent confused; if he had to travel the city three times in a day to ensure everyone's safety, then he would not shirk his duty.

Duty was everything, but Saul was a little tired of the game.

The Archon was dead set on keeping Garrett Hawke in the city, and no wonder - more mages had scheduled their harrowing since his arrival than they had in years. With a stalemate the court refused to admit in the north, the Imperium needed an endless supply of bodies - mage slaves, fighting slaves, third-born sons and daughters with even a drop of magical talent.

Saul sighed into his hands and reached up to push hair away from his temples. What was shot with silver months before were now patches of white sitting above his ears, and Anders gave him such a look this morning that he thought he must have looked a ghost.

The boy was too stubborn to leave, but if he joined the Imperium he'd be shipped off to the north, then at least he would not be here to interfere. From everything he gleaned so far, Garrett Hawke was the center of a hurricane. Since Saul was not close enough to be safe - and one had to be next to him, it seemed, to be close enough - he settled with as far away as possible.

Considering the amount of trouble the name Garrett Hawke had put him through while he was still in Kirkwall, nowhere in Thedas was far enough to throw him.

A young man nervously shuffled his feet under the archway leading into the atrium. The slaves had let him in, and he brought the required paperwork and such proving that he had an appointment. But the high ranking Magister had sent an apprentice instead of coming himself, and Saul needed to return a slight with another.

Let mages walk all over you and they would skin you and take your blood.

At times, literally.

"Lord Saul," the mageling had a back bone, how about that. "I'm here on behalf of Magister Priscus."

Saul looked up from his pile of correspondence; prices on people, bulk auction rates for the latest illegal shipment off the docks, whispers of murder and rebellion, and news on the slaves newly arrived in the pit. Lives depended on it.

Nothing important, or at least, nothing that couldn't wait until sundown.

Eyes first, chin second. _Let them see the whites of your eyes_ ; a habit he picked up a long time ago. A habit Darin never had time to learn.

Saul thanked the Maker silently, for small mercies. He crooked a finger at the boy. He was twenty at most, likely younger, since mages went through the harrowing early, earlier now and more of them turned and died in the ritual than ever. Either this one was a slow learner or he was one of the many that came from the Kirkwall circle, courtesy of his Anders. 

By his accent, quite likely.

"Do you have a name, lad?" Smiles were cheap compared to what they bought.

"Feynriel, milord."

"Feynriel," Saul nodded. Proper Dalish name, no tattoos, too old for an apprentice. Kirkwall accent. He would have to dig through his records to be sure, but there were other, faster ways to find things out.

As they worked through the rest of the magister's message - finding out, pleasantly, that Magister Priscus was willing to pay up to eight hundred gold for Anders - Saul reached for a hidden bell pull beneath a fig tree, and spoke softly to the servant that came.

Feynriel kept his composure when Mira led Anders out to the atrium, black and gold silk veil over downcast eyes and walking on his hands and knees. As young as he was, if he had been in the Imperium for more than a year, Feynriel must be used to the sight of pleasure slaves. 

People were predictable. Saul made his living off of what he knew of them; if a mage from Kirkwall was in his home and a Champion of Kirkwall was still in the city, Saul assumed that they had some connection. Saul pulled Anders forward so he had to brace his hands on Saul's knee, and he tipped his slave's head back for a kiss. Anders closed his eyes, by habit; Saul saw Feynriel stumble backwards over his feet.

Some connection indeed.

"Tell your master that he has, for the moment, outbid everyone." Saul dragged his hand down again, leaving Anders by his feet, veil falling back into place. "But I will be looking forward to seeing him at the private auction. Everyone will be here, you see. It will not be advisable to miss a party such as this."

"I will pass on the message, milord," the lad was ready to bolt, and as Saul dismissed him, the steps that carried him out the atrium could at least be called harried.

"It looks like we're not going out today," he smiled down at Anders, who did not seem to recognize Feynriel at all. Not surprising; the young mage was at an age where a year or two could change a whole lot.

There was a hole in his organization, so far up the chain of command that they apparently stopped warning him of developments that threatened his life. He flipped through the rest of the day's news on the garden table he used as a desk, coming to the very last page.

Saul hummed, and then he laughed loud enough that Anders turned his face up to look at him, breaking decorum.

"Don't worry," he reached beneath the veil and stroked Anders over his cheek, rubbing the tension out of his jaw. "A storm is coming. But it's nothing we can't handle."

And for the first time in years, he did not possess enough information to know whether that statement was true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was going to be longer - but when I realized that it might be over 7k, I stopped in the middle and decided to post it in two parts. There will be an afternoon to midnight chapter.


	20. One Day - From Dusk to Midnight

Twilight came without fanfare; along the broad avenues of the government district, slaves scurried along the edges quietly and lit each lantern on well-rehearsed paths. They prepared the city for the magisters, who spent their evenings forming political bonds, making friends, planning assassinations the way some planned luncheons.

Minrathous was beyond time, and the richest among them hunted or were hunted like beasts, living precariously on the plains.

On the fringes of the city, by the docks, on narrow streets where the taverns leaned, frequented by pirates and the few travelers who dared a trip into Tevinter, night was night and the alleys were quiet and growing dark.

Varric felt nearly at home here. The thing about dwarves, or so said his brother: they were already living where they did not belong, with the sky above them and mud instead of stone beneath their feet and all that nonsense. Varric called it bullshit then - Tevinter and the Dwarven kingdoms were close like brothers, their pact of blood chiseled into the masonry, mortared into the mosaics, hammered into each line in bronze motifs of slaves with their bent backs and their silent wailing.

The guild here had been here even before that, before the Imperium was an idea and the people from over the sea were not seen yet from the tops of aravels, when the dwarves traded with the People before they were slaves, before parchment and ink, before words were carved on stone.

Varric thumbed the gold Tethras seal in his pocket for luck; he was the remaining Tethras now and in the night he checked the blade kept beneath his pillow. While he knew he had no interest in the lyrium trade, it was an easy cover to get inside the city with a small group of guards. A dangerous cover, but less so than Fenris walking out in the open.

Easy to smuggle in a helmed elf along with the rest of the helmed mercenaries, even if the elf hated the boots and hated the hiding. With a whole floor between them, Varric thought he could hear Fenris muttering curses in Tevene and wearing the boards thin with his pacing.

It was probably his imagination, though. Sitting in a room full of possible assassins made a dwarf paranoid. Varric chose a seat close to the stairs; if he was attacked, an explosive bolt right up to the second railing would summon the guards.

"Hello, old friend."

It had been ten years, three months, and six days since anyone managed to get this close to him before his notice. The voice was velvet and sincerity, musical without a tune. 

"Good thing you weren't sent to kill me or I'd already be dead," said Varric, passing off an effortless compliment.

"Not like you to be sitting with your back to the door."

"I was expecting you."

"What are you going by, these days?"

"Varric Tethras," to his friend's crooked smile and raised brow, he added, "I can't exactly lie to the Merchant Guild. You?"

"Don't. Laugh," and Varric swore the boy - a man now, though he hadn't aged a year - was pouting, the expression possibly too out of character for him and not to mention, new. "It's Florian."

Florian wasn't any more exotic than Orpheus, but it suited him. Varric didn't laugh. Varric also wondered at his own phrasing; out of character, indeed - if he ever knew what Florian's character was.

A beautiful elf-blood speaking with a beardless dwarf in a seedy tavern should have drawn more strange stares, but everyone seemed to be staring inside their cups.

"I take it you're famous?" Varric made a show of looking around. The common area was full of people busy not paying attention.

Their lack of attention was practically audible.

"You've been here before, Varric. Nobody dared touch you last time, either." Florian made a vague gesture of something glittering in the air, "the empire runs on lyrium. Well, blood and lyrium. And lyrium costs more."

"The bird, then?"

"The red tailed hawk or the raven?"

Varric's right eye twitched - fatigue, most likely, from the days of sleeping on the road and worrying about their fool - and he hoped Florian did not read that as concern.

Caring just made the deal more expensive.

"You have the hawk?" He asked, pushing his tankard aside to lean over the table.

"I was hoping that it'd fly this morning, but there was," Florian looked to his side as though about to spit. He spat, hissing through the consonants, "interference."

"Is this the street-level kind of interference or way above our heads interference?" Varric asked for the sake of asking - if it was easy, Florian would have taken care of it already.

"It's out of my hands," Florian said, pinched lips pale where his teeth bit in. Dreadful habit, thought Varric, until blood flushed back in, crimson and ripe - some pinched their cheeks for rouge, and Florian reddened his lips.

"Think an outsider can handle it?"

"Might be out of yours, too. Far as I can see, it went willingly into a new cage."

"And the raven?"

"I will let you know where it's caged in three day's time," Florian smiled, reassuringly showing his teeth and therefore laughably having the opposite effect. "You and your guards are staying here?"

"It's not a palatial suite at the Hanged Man, but it'll have to do."

"I'd hire on more guards, if I were you. The humans might leave you alone, but you know -"

"Lyrium is a cut-throat business. I know. I can take care of myself," Varric patted his crossbow, snug and comforting on his back. "And there's always Bian-"

He hadn't meant to let that slip, but it was a little late to pretend the name meant nothing at all, with half of it hanging in the air like that. Two bards sat in a bar, speechless. There was no punchline/ each waited for the other to crack. Florian smiled first, the temperature dropping as his eyes seemed to frost over.

Varric wondered, way back then, if his eyes were a warm dark grey or a cool dark grey. The answer was whatever Florian felt appropriate for them to be.

"You named your crossbow Bianca," he stated the obvious. A good sign; the bard Varric knew only stated the obvious when he truly had nothing else to say.

A bard always had something to say. Even if they were regurgitated words three thousand years old.

"She's a beauty," Varric took Bianca off his back and laid her on the table, carefully covering the runes on the stock with one hand. "The only repeating crossbow like her. The only -"

"Stop," Florian stared at him blankly and let the silence drift over them both. The chatter at the bar ceased; the conversations that flowed between patrons near enough to know they were speaking, but were no longer, fell dead.

The bard had no words, and everyone, Varric assumed, expected a fight.

Florian stood, pushing the chair away and let it scratch across the floor; the chatter picked up again. 

"It's been ten years, Varric," and he was not friendly at all, no levity and business grace or even an attempt to make nice, even though the instinct to do so was bred through pain; Varric still remembered the stories. "Let it go."

In his short life, some years going by as fast as days and some days creeping by like the longest of centuries in the hearts of mountains, Varric had seen numerous horrific deaths. Most deaths bled lines into the next and he barely remembered which was which; even the children turning into abominations and hands thrust through chests to grapple with hearts became mundane. Some were burned into his eyelids and he relived them in the near-dawn hours even though dwarves did not dream.

Some, he replayed constantly, in the lyrics of a song he never dared to sing, in the whistling of a hundred bolts flying through the air.

"No," he said, for he needed not explain - if there was one person who would not need to hear his rationale and the excuses for being alone, Florian was that man.

If there was any light outside at all and the light inside was not only cast by cheap oil lamps, he would have seen the blood draining out of Florian's hand as he gripped the door handle too tightly, his knuckles casting harsh shadows over impeccable skin. He looked like a doll with temper.

"Florian, huh," he said, as the door to the inn swung shut. "It's not as though you ever let it go, either."

When he left the conversations picked up and grew louder, mugs clanged, and the shock of electricity that permeated the inn discharged. He left leaving Varric to sit alone to contemplate their plans, pondering how he was going to keep the cagey elf from charging off to get their Hawke for a full three days.

Upstairs, in a room where not even a single lamp was lit, Fenris glanced out of his only window, its length half-covered with a sail-cloth.

The moon rose just enough for him to make out a line of new clapboard houses by the docks. Every summer brought on chaos only hurricanes could bring, and every winter the refugees and the poor freed men built their homes anew; Fenris remembered the elves and the humans in their ragged clothes toiling in the dry sun.

He watched the thin scythe of light climb high past the edge of his window now as he took off his boots and pulled off the stiff, new gauntlets.

It was a good disguise. With a full mask that hid his unmistakable forest green eyes and the leather and mail over a thin silk shirt that covered everything, the only trait that could have raised suspicion was his uncertain gait. But as armour it was restrictive and hot - Fenris did not understand how the others could fight without being able to bend their elbows and feel the ground beneath their feet.

He pulled on his leggings by the light of the stars. 

His black leathers moulded to the hunched set of his shoulders, stretched taut over his arms. When he moved they moved with him. Flexing his fingers inside a clawed gaunlet, Fenris had this strange feeling that he was coming home - not that it hadn't always felt a little like that each time he dressed, but here, in Minrathous, so close to the northern sea, the pressure and heat of this city softened it, made it respond like a second skin.

There were plenty of opportunities to replace it over the years he was away. Hawke had offered to have something custom made for him, less spiky, less flashy but no less functional. Each time Fenris gently refused the offer, giving the man excuses and no real reasons.

For he did not know the reason himself, then.

It was the only thing made for his use. His sword could be given away, his clothes, his rooms, his possessions, all the gifts bestowed by guests and his dead master were never quite his. But this was a thing of beauty made to his measurements and would not fit anyone that came after.

His armour, hardened tips and impressions of leaves all along the leather leggings, enchanted thrice over; a gift from a man he loved and loathed.

The one thing that was hard to feel about Danarius was nothing at all.

He was dead. It was over. But it never was; death did not dissolve poisonous hatred and this need to erase every last thing that reminded him of his past - and was it ever over? Could it ever be over? Would he wake at sixty - and Maker knew how old he really was, he could not remember yet - with a need for vengeance on a man who hurt him at twenty?

In his ledger there was only one name left. Would his memories add to it? For now he could not eat without tasting bitterness and sleep without nightmares and they compelled him, forward, onward, out a crooked window, down strange streets until the ground beneath his feet felt intimate and yet unwelcome, like an old friend came to call in the night.

Jarring, but familiar.

Not many walked the old city once the sun sunk past the horizon, or perhaps he could say, not many aside from magisters and rich citizens. Fenris let the stars, the glow from beyond the high awning of the market and the texture of the streets guide him; a sandy path here, a cracked paved road there, smooth tiles all along a broad back street.

The villa he sought faced an open avenue where the lamps both magical and mundane made the alleys in between pitch black. If there were guards they would have been night-blinded, compared to Fenris, who took all the darkest streets getting here.

Fenris had seen these gates before, knew how they shone in broad bright Tevinter sunlight. His fingers found places along the wall to cling to, down the alley and the entrance for tradesmen, small, tightly patterned stone tiles caked with mud beneath his feet.

No light in the garden beyond, no lamps in the paths of the orchard. But over the short trees he could make out a building, a darker shape against the stars, foreboding and black but for one flickering glow showing the edges of a balcony, darker still their columns.

Fenris tested the gate gently and he was surprised to find it swinging open soundlessly on well-oiled hinges.

He expected to scale the walls with his gauntlets and land on the other side silently, on bare feet. He expected guards, slaves ready to throw their lives away to save their master, an ambush. Something.

Merriment drifted through the air, and despite the high walls and flora, the crowd was stiflingly close. For a breath he waited, hesitating. Fenris had no plan - he had acted on instinct and adrenaline and this need to erase the images that kept coming. But what if the house was empty and its tenants off at a banquet?

But those were cowardly thoughts. If the house was empty then he would just have to come back another day. Fenris placed one foot in front of the other, letting the images of his daydreams fade.

At the foot of the villa, when his sensitive ears picked up no sound at all save one man's breathing, Fenris took his sword off his back and placed it on the ground.

His claws dug deep into the cracks between old stone. This was a magister's home, once, fallen into disrepair and bought for less gold than a depleted silver mine. Leto knew of this. And now, as did Fenris.

It was a strange thing to know a part of yourself, or what you once were - a distinctly different person with memories like play-acting through his eyes, along came alien emotions: exhilaration, happiness, delight; battles sang for Leto as though bards accompanied him, and in the end he caught flames and died, a shining beacon for the consequences of rebellion.

He was two different people. It was time to kill the old one.

On a plain balcony - none of the vases and pots of flowers and song birds in cages on an overhang that one would expect in a villa here - the slaver was waiting for him, one finger over his lips for silence, leaning on the railing as Fenris pulled himself up and over, cat-like without his weapon.

"This is a trick. An ambush," Fenris bristled, hand raised and ready to strike. He spoke quietly; if there were guards coming he wished to hear them. "Where are your guards?"

The man known to most simply as The Slaver, spoken with a title that wasn't, did not move from his position. Fenris dug deep in his memories - to recall all he knew about Saul aside from his name - and found too little for someone as well-known as he was.

Was he a warrior? A thief? His trade was the theft of life but was he hiding blades behind him or at his hips? A soft breeze flattened his silk tunic, and Fenris paused his rambling thoughts, scowl easing and the creases by his mouth creeping up to rest between his brows.

A business acquaintance to all, a friend to none. Courteous, well-spoken, fair in his dealings, kept to himself for the most part - and Fenris stopped asking.

It was better to think of the enemy as the other. Alien, unknown thing, wholly unlike himself.

Finding him here was better than finding him in bed. Fenris would never stoop so low as to kill a man while he slept, even a man such as this. But as he watched the way Saul carried himself, with his elbow casually resting against marble and one arm at his side, it was obvious to Fenris that he was not only unarmed, but that if one was to arm Saul with a sword, a dagger, anything at all, he would not have known what to do with it.

He knew there were other weapons, more powerful than a mere greatsword, but killing an unarmed man in cold blood - if Danarius' death was ashes on his tongue then this would be far worse, and if he had to go back and measure out bile with spoons and cups, this time he might fill a fountain with regret.

"Why would I need guards if you came to talk?" Saul said, eyes on the tips of Fenris' upraised gauntlet.

"I didn't come here to talk."

"You came to kill me, then," Saul spoke softly, his inflections gentle, dead calm. "Then I'm glad I sent them all away."

"You mean to say you want to die?"

The openings of the balcony led into a room - presumably Saul's bedroom, for Fenris could make out an empty bed - the flames in a brazier sputtered and dimmed. Even magisters used them in the winter, for warmth, and Danarius used to let the one in their bedroom burn all night.

Saul had his only half-filled then, if it was dying by midnight. He was frugal.

Strange trait for a slaver.

"I wouldn't say that, Leto. But I wouldn't want anyone to die on my behalf." He said the name and Fenris twitched, his claws digging lightly into the leather of his palm and against each other, a metallic screech, grating to the ear.

"You knew I was coming. You could have fled."

"I could have. I could also have set up an ambush and had you captured. I could have informed the citizen registry of your presence, or have you taken into custody. I did not."

_He's trying to trick you. He's trying to make you feel as though you owe him. It is why all his slaves are loyal to the last. Do not fall for it._

Fenris let lyrium alight on his fingers, dipped his hand halfway between this world and the next. Regrets could come later; he had learned to save them for mornings.

"Any last words?" He asked. If he had to listen to this man any longer his resolve would waver ever farther. From a slaver's mouth truths and lies and reality were muddled, twisted too tightly to pull apart.

"You are always so certain. How?" Saul's hands were at his side and his heart was there behind a thin layer of silk.

He was not obligated to answer the question, but with the calm words he had already heard nagging at him - too many of them already, little debts, mounting up - like flies taking turns to rest on his hand, Fenris twitched and shook his arm and flexed.

"How can you be so sure you're right?"

Fenris was as sure as the hand that wielded him, the voice that asked things of him, soft and gentle and with every word such certainty. _Little wolf, little wolf. Come to bed._ Soft like asking a wild thing to eat out of your hand, sweet and grape syrup laced, strung with kisses and false love to make the pain go down easier. Even cracked, blood sputtering between breaths and weak, his master's voice compelled him, shook him from confusion.

_Kill them all, my pet. Kill them all._

This was different, but his hand could not be steadied. This was not the same thing, because he was choosing to kill - with the weapon that his master made of him. Was it not his choice?

But there was no choice when emotions ran to extremes. Not for a slave, not for a free man, not for a magister.

"You'll let him command you," Saul said, low and wistful and Fenris could almost believe it real, this show of sadness. "From beyond the grave."

"Shut up," there wasn't much distance between them to begin with and his strides were long; the tips of one gauntlet tore into silk, but the fabric held and did not rip as he lifted Saul easily, single-handedly, the magic branded into his skin gifting him with supernatural strength.

Their silence was broken with only one sound, a dry, sad laugh, a lonely, dismal cough of a laugh. It made Fenris hesitate, and his claws - like a beast he still wore those claws - hovered inches from Saul's chest, white and burning, throbbing like an old wound. The tips of his fingers itched, a phantom pain.

"You killed your sister, didn't you?"

"Shut up."

"She saved your life."

"I said shut your mouth!" Fenris shook him, once, hard enough to hear the rattling of the slaver's teeth. The light of his hand dimmed; he would have to concentrate to ghost again.

"No," Saul smiled - he grinned, eyes wide open and looking down so Fenris saw the whites of his eyes in the leftover trace of lyrium glow. "You've always done what you want, you selfish brat."

_He should have just gone straight to the meeting, even if it seemed heartless to leave without so much as a goodbye. Leto was sentimental and mother would have wanted to see him, so he took the back ways and the dark streets, bare feet reading the ground and taking him past narrow corners, ignoring the tolling of the bells that warned him of how little time he had._

_Leto believed. The world needed to change, and it could only change with dismantling the magocracy. The magisters had to die, the People would rise again, and there was a legion of slaves that would be slaves no longer. His faith in the cause was hot as the sun that beat down on the backs of slaves as they laid down new roof tiles at midday._

_But no cause like theirs came without a price._

_Sacrifices had to be made. He slowed when he reached the villa; there were no guards, not at this hour. Slaves did not think to run when they could be seen._

_Maybe it was a mistake, coming here. leto touched the rough hewn stone that made up the walls, and though he was not a coward - he was ready to give his life, for freedom for all slaves - he was afraid._

_"What are you doing here?" Then there was the reason why he felt fear, of all things. Varania approached in her apprentice robes, light rouge on her cheeks to match her crimson lips._

_She wore that for their master. Leto swallowed, sour and sick the moment her voice reached his ears._

_Leto wanted to call her all manners of names but none of them would hurt more than "mage" and none of them stung him as much as "sister," so he called her by name, always, even if it took the longest. Every time she smiled too wide in front of their master it reminded him, she reminded him, that he owed her this, the little hours of freedom in between the servitude, in between complete obedience; that while their master was busy shuttered with his sister he was not tormenting the others._

_The others, like Leto, their mother, the slave girls that grew up with her but did not share her gift - the curse._

_Leto was tired of being protected._

_"I just wanted to," he stumbled over his words, but there was no time left. Courage pushed the rest of his sentence out of his mouth. "To say goodbye."_

_Varania had tender, sorrowful eyes and a soft expression, sweet enough to melt their master's heart, but she was hard where it counted, hard enough to withstand a Tevinter storm. Perhaps even enough to shelter their mother from the on-coming hurricane, the inevitable backlash from this choices._

_"You can't win this fight, Leto."_

_"Varania," he wanted to tell her something encouraging, something along the lines of _there is no way for you to know that,_ or _I will free you both, you'll see_ but he was not brought up with hope like the free children with their idle dreams. "Let me see mother."_

_"What, so you can tell her you're throwing our lives away?" She did not sound bitter, not as much as she sounded resigned._

_"Varania -"_

_"No. You can see her if you change your mind," she turned away from him, and he could have struck her but she was family, too. He came also to see her, even if the meeting was unhappy for them both. "But not before."_

_"I can't do that."_

_"No," Varania left in a swish of robes, and her voice carried, low, steady, across the empty garden. "You've always done what you want, you selfish brat."_

Fenris threw the slaver across the balcony. In hindsight, he should have thrown him off the balcony. They were on the second floor. Fenris might have thrown him hard enough to break his spine.

Lyrium flared from Fenris' fingers up to this shoulders and in its light he could make out blood trickling out of Saul's mouth. Fear would have been promising, and he could see pain in the etched scowl and deeper still disapproval like his sister, but he would rather see the stillness, the blankness of death.

Leto should have died, out in a blaze of glory like he wanted, and Fenris should not have to carry his mistakes.

His memory was gone. Now he knew that was a mercy he thought Danarius incapable of.

Let Leto be no more.


	21. The Other Half of Midnight

"Stop," the slaver pleaded. "You're hurting me."

A heart was a beacon. Life connected to three fragile strings, calling him like a siren with every pulse. Fenris brushed a finger delicately over one artery, watched as the man quivered beneath his touch, a marionette with strings plucked by a puppeteer mad on need for revenge.

No, not revenge. For closure. When this life was over, Fenris could finally start anew.

"Please."

The slaver's lips were not moving.

Neither was that plea in the same voice that haunted him in waking dreams, the one that offered him a deal like a demon, the one implicit in the crimes he committed under command even if his part was done. It was honey sweet and soft, gentle, even in times when the words were harsh.

It had never been harsh to Fenris. At least not while he was the one bleeding out or wincing in pain or even as he cursed at magic used to close his wounds.

Fenris was like -

Fenris was -

_You selfish brat._

Had he been reduced to this?

His life, tabulated in a series of blood debts, a meaningless ledger of red. Owed to his sister as she traded her body for his moments of freedom, owed to the slaver so his family could go free, owed to the blood mage who knew how Leto hated himself most of all. But no matter how much he scrubbed and the blood peeled away in flakes of crimson black, time passing in unremarkable years free and trapped all at once, at his core the hatred remained.

_Some things were better left buried._

Leto traveled with him, carrying a note of credit so he could borrow; and when the deal reached its end and they came to collect, Fenris was the one who robbed his debtors of their lives. This freedom tasted of ashes.

This freedom was wrought of lives he had no claim to.

Somewhere near the floor, the healer's voice pleaded again.

Another debt easier erased with a twist of his hand than repaid. Burn the bill. Taste the ashes in his mouth long after, not knowing what information he missed, what he did not know that made these people act so righteous around him.

Ignorance was an easy path to take. Without knowing this man and his deeds, nor the the full extent of his dealings, the rumours that he too, was once a slave; it made killing him that much easier.

_Kill them both, and you'll be free._

No.

Not this time, Danarius. _I'm not a slave, Danarius._ The words were easy to say then, but as Varania knelt and begged and the same vitriol clouded his eyes, he killed her anyway. It was easier to declare freedom than it was to live it.

Anders clawed at his bare feet, blunted nails scratching a lyrium vein. A human was blinded in this darkness, but as Fenris watched him scrabble over the slaver's limbs he saw what Anders could be looking for.

Saul was strangely silent but Anders made up for it with his laboured breathing and clumsy hands slapping against stone in the dark. Two peope barely breathing, two slowing hearts and lungs filling up with blood. Fenris' eyes widened in the dark, unseen; they might both die anyway. Dead from his ignorance.

Would that it made him any less guilty.

Fenris never cared much for Hawke's pet mage. He wondered what Hawke would think of this, if Hawke would believe that Fenris came to kill both Anders and his slaver on purpose, to finish what began when the ashes began to fall over Kirkwall. It snowed that day, the plentiful fall made of crushed stone and hair and the remnants of mouldy scarves and broken crates, old cloth barely worn through and sandal straps, and like snow it made the city eerily quiet and lacking in the panic of large crowds, so many dead, their ears still ringing from the explosion.

A bloodstone pulsed with red light in the dark. Fenris should have noticed it sooner, but his mind was elsewhere. He pushed Anders' fingers aside roughly, and in his grip, taking seemingly minutes to do so, the bracelet came apart.

For a sliver of eternity - yawning, fathomless, filled with endless possibilities - he thought their tale could end like this. In this tale Fenris came and killed the slaver, saved the hapless mage, and once the mage was in his possession Hawke would leave Tevinter taking his merry band of misfits home, to a place where life was somewhat predictable and fates did not change from the moment a bead of bloodstone left his hand to the moment it hit a marble floor.

It was an impossibly idyllic story given what he'd seen, but everyone dreamed at one point or another. Dreams even slaves on the run who hoped for little could dream.

Until his shoulder cracked and broke against a pillar and Anders' eyes blazed a blinding blue to meet him, regarding him with cold fire, not showing a sign that he saw him at all for anything other than an enemy he had to crush, Fenris thought it was the end of this journey.

It might be the end, regardless, if the stitch in his lungs was a broken rib and the warmth behind his neck a trickle of blood. He would laugh now if he was not hurting so much; this was a trap after all, and an efficient one. All those years in Kirkwall with bounty hunters hounding his heels, men and women falling in a line of crimson as they reached him, and this slaver used only one man to take him down.

Fenris could not let it end like this, but he had no weapon, no means with which to fight back, save one.

"Anders," it hurt to breathe. It hurt to speak. It hurt to lay down his pride and use a name where a hated title used to suffice. "Leave with me."

With eyes half open and blinded by the fade, Fenris watched as Anders - Justice - cradled the slaver in his arms like a precious thing, a lover, more gentle than he thought the spirit was capable of being. Fingers glowing with healing energy moved over a tunic spotted with blood and the man inside them gasped and winced. Justice was healing him.

"Why?" Fenris tried to raise a hand to check his wounds but they both his arms refused to move. "Anders -"

_Why help him?_

"I HAVE STUDIED ANDERS' MEMORIES," with his work finished and Saul back on his feet, Justice turned to Fenris, a glyph to keep him still as he moved flesh and bone back into places where they had been only moments before.

He wasn't going to die. Anders wasn't about to let him die - he only wanted Fenris out of the way and his master out of danger. Somehow that was not comforting at all, that his continual existence would be another certainty.

With his wounds closed he was still trapped with magic, a glyph glowing on the cool floor beneath him keeping him paralyzed. He was an intruder in an Imperial citizen's home and he attacked its owner; Saul had every right to take him prisoner, to keep him, or sell him, or as he thought Danarius wanted, to strip the lyrium from his skin.

His own words, spoken alone to a fire in the night as he waited for news, for months, for years; even now he was not convinced, as often as he repeated it, that they were true.

Cool, soft fingers tipped Fenris up to face Anders, digits smelling of fragrant oils and feeling wholly unfamiliar. His eyes narrowed in anticipation of blinding fade light.

It was honey and amber that met him. Soft, mortal, as warm a gaze as Anders had always used towards a patient. His skin was still crossed with blue but his eyes were clear.

Fenris never did believe Anders when he claimed he could control himself. Evidence given over the years only added to the confidence of his mockery. Anders' rage and passion was too great to serve as a vessel for a fade spirit, and Fenris saw this, watching him the way he watched all the mages and taking in the waves of emotions behind every word. Anders was the ocean slamming against sandbags piled against a storm, and Fenris waited for the day he lost control completely. But now, with Anders above him and the serene smile pulling at the corner of his lips, Fenris could no longer tell if he was a human possessed by a spirit, or a spirit that had learned what it meant to be human.

"Did he torture you until you saw things his way?" Fenris said, hoping for a reaction, to shake him the way his arms would have shaken Anders if they were free.

"Fenris," when Anders spoke again his voice did not echo, though the magic was still there, showing through his skin. He shook his head, still smiling, a habit and a duty of service slaves in Tevinter, and to Fenris it was a smile of submission he was glad to never see again, "it's not like that."

"You're a slave," Fenris said, slowly, meticulously, as though speaking to a child. "You're - his - Slave. Do you deny it?"

Anders' smile seemed to drop, or at least to waver in hesitation, but Saul whispered something in Anders' ear too low for Fenris to hear over the thrumming of magic all over his lyrium brands, hand creeping over his shoulder.

It brought gooseflesh breaking over Fenris' arms, watching this intimate touch that the mage welcomed.

"No," his expression was soft and serene, a perfect mirror to his new master, and Fenris knew he could not win. Anders belonged to this man as surely as Fenris once belonged to Danarius; loved him, wholeheartedly, completely, as a babe reborn and loving the first person to show him affection.

"Come with me," he tried anyway, for he was sure that Anders was the only one that could keep Fenris from a life back in slavery. He would not allow that trespass; better death than servitude. "Hawke is waiting for you."

"Is he now?" Saul raised an eyebrow, and in that instant Fenris knew he should not have played that card - Saul knew exactly just what hand Fenris was dealt. "Then why didn't he come himself?"

"The magisters are holding him prisoner."

It was as close to the truth as he could manage. Perhaps it wasn't a lie.

Concern widened Anders' eyes, little shifts of muscles so much smaller than they used to be, the surprise only a slight deviance from his neutral, smiling mask. Saul pushed blond hair to one side, wiping at the blood on Anders' chin gently; then even that momentary lapse was gone as quickly as it arrived.

"He went to the public bath house today. I heard he conducted himself as a magister would. Picking up local manners," Saul grinned, eyes crinkling, as if the mirth was more than pretend, "like a champion."

There might have been visiting disappointment in the minute slump of Anders' shoulders, but Saul was still holding him, pushing errant emotions away with light touches on his jaw, absentmindedly petting him as though Anders was a loyal mabari to his Ferelden noble.

Which was rather too close to the mark, and too close to what Fenris was, making Fenris squirm in his skin. _My pet._

"He's just playing along so they don't kill him," but he knew that argument could not hold water; the three of them knew what it meant to conduct oneself as an Imperial citizen in a Tevinter bath house, and their Hawke was anything but a person of high moral character. Fenris had nothing left to offer but himself, and he would offer and beg if only long enough to change Anders' mind. "Come with me then, Anders. You are not without friends."

They needed Hawke to smile at them and hold their hands and tell them they were in the right. They needed Anders to sew their cuts and mend their bones, but if Hawke could live without him, so could they.

And the sad light in Anders' eyes, that fire he showed so often in Kirkwall nearly extinguished, made it more clear than any words he could say. Anders only had one person he truly called a friend, and even that was lost too. Lost in words exchanged hastily.

Lost in lies, thought Fenris, but he was never sure of Hawke's intentions, even when they were on the same side.

"And you were never one of them," Anders reached up and held Saul's hand in his, as if for support, for reassurance. "Will you let him go?"

Fenris felt a pull as he snapped up at the casual question. Anders always thought of others before himself.

The corner of Fenris' mouth twitched in spite of the paralysis glyph. How solitary a creature he was, climbing over walls at night in Tevinter for he thought he could only undertake a mission like this alone. How cautious a life on the run made him; how sad that the mage on the run for years longer than Fenris would gladly plead for the life of a stranger.

"It's not my place," Saul gave Anders' collar a quick tug, and Anders rose to his feet, his possession still apparent but tamed, as though the calmed current of his thoughts carried the fade spirit, convinced him that whatever Saul chose to do, he was in the right. "It's up to Mira."

Mira. Fenris mulled the words over, trying to connect it one of his disjointed memories, and failed.

A messy halo framed her pale cheeks, one half of her face fragile and beautiful, while most of the other half was covered in an angry scar, with a clouded eye that stared at him blankly. She seemed lifeless as marble illuminated only by the fade, but her skin glowed; She was the image of a spirit of vengeance, Andraste herself after the pyre, if there was any conviction in her face at all.

But in her eyes there was only fear. She was a slave, a cripple, kept only on a whim, one foot in the refuse pit. Fenris blinked; of course she would only know of fear.

Vaguely, he recalled her in broken bits of memory, of this same girl laughing, a small hand-carved crossbow slung over one shoulder, its polish chipped, dull and unassuming. Fenris could not connect the memories with what he saw, but he thought this girl should call him Leto, and yet she did not know his name, either.

Whatever it might have been that made Saul thought it worth bringing them together in this space and this time, it was a lifetime ago, before their current names.

Her hand shook as she stared at him with her finger over the trigger. It slipped, and she tried finding it again. Fenris realized that she did not know how it worked, the bolt pointing to the side instead of at him, and if she actually fired it might knock her to the floor. The crossbow was made for a human and far too big on her arm; and as she tried to find the trigger again, it fell crashing to the floor.

The girl Saul called Mira dropped to her knees and grovelled, her forehead pressed to the floor and her shoulders shaking with the dread only a slave could know.

"Mira, it's all right." Saul crouched down and brought her to her feet, treating her like an equal.

To Fenris, he said dismissively, as though luring Fenris into this trap was never his intention, "you are free to go."

Anders drew a glyph of repulsion with his fingers around the three of them. It was always Anders now, even if his skin was cracked in blue lines and the fade permeated everything but his eyes.

Fenris did not wait for the slaver to change his mind.

He jumped over the railing, landing in a crouch and a roll, and as if the hounds of the Void were after him, Fenris reached the gates at a dead run. His lungs hurt and his mouth tasted like blood, and he stopped briefly, resting his back on the cool stone wall.

It wasn't until a hand closed over his mouth, and sickly, numbing poison touched his tongue, that he remembered he left his sword behind, forgotten at the foot of the villa.

In the bedroom, where the events near the gates were of no concern at all, Saul raised the mundane looking bracelet in question, "have you decided to stay?"

"YOUR CAUSE IS JUST," nothing but blue fire. Like staring into another world.

"If you can conceal yourself, and you can control your magic," Saul draped the bracelet over his wrist, but made no move to snap the ends back together. "There is no need for this imprisonment."

"NO. I CANNOT STAND BY WHILE INJUSTICE REIGNS. HOW DO YOU TOLERATE IT?" Justice looked to him, and if not affectionately, the way Anders saw him with devotion, then there was respect in the slight deference he offered in his stance, relaxed arms to his sides.

"I don't," Saul offered. "I'm trying my best to end it with the least amount of bloodshed."

"IT IS DIFFICULT TO SEE THE WORLD WITH MORTAL EYES. WE HAVE ERRED, PERHAPS, WITH OUR DECISIONS IN KIRKWALL."

"You do the best you can with the information you have."

"AND YOU KNOW THIS LAND BETTER THAN US. I AM CONTENT TO WAIT AND HELP YOU WHEN THE NEED ARISES."

"Thank you. For your trust," if a fade spirit could smile, then Saul could say he had seen it. "I hope to live up to it."

The ends of the bracelet fused together. They were in the dark again, save for a glowing glyph still beneath their feet.

Anders tucked his chin into Saul's shoulder, filling himself with the essence of him, sweet fruit and scented oils and not a hint of the grave. The boundary between living and dead was so thin that he nearly found them both on the other side. His shoulders began to shake, his fingers clawing too deeply into Saul's back.

Facing the pitch dark night, Anders recalled Hawke's smile; so earnest and bashful and smitten his eyes never quite met Anders', and when he spoke he talked around things, taking circuitous paths around subjects, stealing glances at his lips.

Anders mourned him, watched colour strip away from his eyes, his face crumple and break until he was dust. He knew without a doubt now that rescue would never come, and the weight that wrapped itself around him and dragged him down, making him dizzy, was not the loss of hope he long expected.

He had no refuge in Hawke; there never was refuge in Hawke, only false assurances that Anders was on the right path, even when he strayed so far he could not even see the destination any more.

"I'm all right," Saul turned and kissed his temple, his chest pressed to Anders', his heart beating just a touch out of sync against him, enough to remind him that it was not an echo.

A heart was a beacon. Saul lived. He breathed. His breath was hot on Anders' cheek.

This was his refuge. And for a moment, a fleeting, foolish thought brought him happiness; this was the refuge he had chosen for himself.

His arms encircling Saul tightened, the pain they suffered this night forgotten.

Nothing else mattered.

Of Fenris, Anders did not give a second thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this wraps up the plot for now.
> 
> (Next, the private auction!)
> 
> (aka porn)


	22. Goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Auction day.

Anders could not sleep.

Alone in a strange bed, his desires unsated and lying hard on his stomach, his hands resting obediently beneath a pillow, he missed the steady rhythm of his master's heart beating behind his. No ropes bound him this night, and where he expected them to be, over his collarbones and across his ribs, a line down his spine, wrapped over his hips and between his legs, a tingling coolness remained.

A ghost haunted his skin.

When sleep finally took him nightmares woke him screaming, breath coming shallow and quick; he stared at the open doorway, but Saul did not come. Anders spent the minutes waiting, eyes and ears open to the dark, hoping.

A figure did come through the doorway at last, when he was growing bleary again.

Mira pulled the blanket from the foot of the bed and draped it over his shoulders. Without a voice to sing a lullaby, she tapped a soft, slow rhythm on his back, she smoothed his hair, matted and darkened by sweat, back away from his cheeks.

He did not remember the moment he fell asleep again, but when he did, he dreamt of nothing more than Saul cradling him in the cellars, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

On the day Anders refused to name - refused even to mark the hours as time swirled and dwindled to nothing in his invisible hourglass - he woke again alone, the outside of his arms like ice. As he pushed himself up from the mattress, blinking away sleep, feeling the stretch in his muscles and rolling his shoulders back, the blanket fell and collected at his waist.

He shivered, chilled to the bone, against accustomed Tevinter heat. His breath left him, and traitorously, it did not steam.

Later, in another part of the villa, in a room with no windows, its light fractured by leaded glass from a single skylight, Florian braided the ribbons attached to a half mask into Mira's hair. The mask itself was made to order and lifted just off her scar for comfort, something common in Orlais but a novelty in Tevinter. It had never been worn.

Florian broke the seal on its box only today.

Beneath the mask her smile was faint, but present, and it was more than what he was used to seeing. She fled at the sight of him years ago, and Saul reassured him that she reacted the same way with any guest, refusing to take one step outside the villa's main door. That a stranger managed in one week what he tried to do for years still stung.

She did not flinch as he dusted powder over her cheeks. Despite his warnings, she would not keep her eye closed; she had no eye-hole in her mask, only a shape to mirror her good eye, filled in with black paint.

Maybe with all their allies counted, Mira was the lucky one to have forgotten everything. It was a heartrending burden to be loved the way she was loved. He was not bitter at how he had been forgotten, for all he had sacrificed.

He had a new purpose now; one extending its reach to all slaves, to the elves stolen in the night from alienages and the ones bled for the sake of entertainment, the children yet to be born into servitude, and chains of elves and humans lost to the bottom of the ocean. She led him here, but his life was no longer hers. Florian stroked her cheek again, spreading light rouge on unmarred skin.

He painted dew on her eyelid, his gaze lingering too long on the way her eye shone, like sunlight dappling through leaves. Again, he held his tongue despite the words, heated and hated that wished so to spill forth.

As she walked away he watched her back, the tails of her dress bouncing lightly along with her steps. She was contented enough, even happy, sometimes. He let her go without having said a single word; she responded to his chatter with silence for years.

Florian gathered his tools and found Saul where he expected to find Saul, looking out over his balcony alone.

From his vantage point the slaves carried from the storehouse to the kitchens to the villa, vases and statuettes and new cushions and food to be prepared. Three hours left until the auction.

"I prettied up Mira, like you asked."

"Thank you," Saul said.

Florian waited. He would not admit that the lack of inquiry threw him slightly off balance. It was just after noon, too bright out here with no shelter against the sun. He squinted and looked at Saul again, trying to gauge his interest, and as usual, Saul gave him nothing, not even a lifted eyebrow.

"Questions? Comments?" Florian leaned over the railing, forcing Saul to meet his gaze, meant to be playful and probably aggravating. "Accusations?"

"And should I accuse you, what would you do?"

"I would explain myself."

"You say that as if I can get a straight answer out of you," Saul sighed, finally turning his attention away from the pandemonium below.

"Trade you one truth for another?" Florian spread his hands, taking one little step back. Only his friends knew to respect his need for distance. Saul hoarded his personal space like other people hoarded their gold.

"Fine. Why didn't you tell me about Leto - Fenris?" Saul regarded him with arms crossed, staring down his nose. The man could be downright intimidating when he wanted to be.

"A human, a tattooed elf, and a dwarf hunted all along the edges of Nevarra killing every last slaver in sight. The human arrived nearly four weeks ago. The dwarf came a few days ago, without the elf," Florian spread his hands. "I'm good at this, I swear I am, but the elf was missing. I figured he turned back. If I was an escaped slave, I would have."

Saul handed him a sheet of paper, the creases bending both ways and the edges softened by handling, "tell me about this."

"Hey, you get one question," Florian took it anyway. Smoothing his finger tips over the blank parts and bringing it close to his nose, he found it smelling too much like Saul for him to glean any useful information from any scent. "Silk paper. Considering how well the ink's managed to stay on the page with all this creasing, high quality ink. Apprentice hand writing."

"How would you even know that?"

Florian deadpanned, "Magister handwriting is illegible. This one clearly says 'Fenris might come calling tonight.'"

"And that's it. No signature. Not even mention of a reward," Saul looked confused. Clearly, someone trying to save his life without asking for a reward was difficult to comprehend.

"A slave, perhaps. A very brave slave to steal paper as expensive as this," Florian turned the page in his hand and marveled at the way light seemed to shimmer off its curves as if it was the inside of a sea shell. Darin was never one for luxuries of this kind. "More likely to be an apprentice."

Saul smiled, distinctly lopsided, along with one tilted eyebrow.

"Yes, well. It might be difficult to believe, but people outside of Tevinter sometimes do good things without hope of reward."

"We're still in Tevinter."

Below them, a slave dropped a covered basket. Fresh bread rolls came tumbling out into the dirt; the slave himself dropped quickly to his knees. As Saul averted his eyes, another slave pulled him away from the line, the others still deep in their work of moving. He was quickly beaten, sent back to the kitchens with red welts on his legs, visible beneath the short, roughspun tunic they all wore.

Saul ran a lenient household.

"Hopefully not for much longer," Florian said, looking beyond the commotion towards the high walls.

"Are you planning on leaving?"

"Me? No. This," Florian gestured, to those below nothing more than a soft wave at the grounds, but pointedly in the direction of the Hall of Magisters. "The rest of the world is at war, or on the edge of it. Maybe it's time to speed things up a bit."

"Florian -"

"We are not going to sit around anymore," Florian made it clear that 'we' did not include Saul. He lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. "Most of your old contracts never left - they're mercs, assassins, bards, bricklayers. They kept the most menial jobs so they can have their revenge. They've made friends. I've made friends. I have your army."

"It's not going to be enough," Saul gave his look of disapproval, but Florian had seen that enough times - it no longer had any effect. "Think of the last revolt. Think of all of them."

"Sometimes -" He had flashes of inspiration, even if at the moment he dismissed it, calling it paranoia. But Florian was tired of bringing this up to be shot down again and again. "Sometimes I'm not sure which side you're on."

"There is only one side for me," Saul did not miss a heartbeat in answer. "But when you fail, you will die. I can't save you."

"Have some faith, my friend," Florian reached over to grip Saul by the shoulder, and gave him a squeeze. "At any rate I'm still waiting for one last package. We have time before we need to say goodbye. Or something equally stupid and sentimental."

Florian tried for a laugh, but neither of them was in any mood. Saul only sighed again. "Not today. I have enough to deal with today."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"Why? Or should I say, for which bit of news?"

Florian remembered a time when Saul had looked young. "Forcing you to sell him."

"No. It's," Saul paused, turning his back on the scene below them as another slave was whipped for yet another mistake. "It's better this way."

Florian left feeling strangely unsettled, and he could almost name it. Something was left hanging, unpoken, unasked. A hint of distrust. For their partnership, a bargain kept every step of the way over ten years, it was an alien feeling. He hoped it would not last.

As he took the last corner that brought him around the atrium, avoiding the trickle of guests that arrived at any time of their choosing, he caught sight of a young man helping an elderly magister through the front door. Something caught in his stomach like butterflies - like the scent of an Orlesian pastry from his youth, or the sound of songbirds in the morning as he woke in his childhood home. It tickled like an old memory, the last dream before waking, dissolving on his tongue as he tried to recall that flash of blond hair at dawn.

Romantic thoughts, he mused, and Florian's steps did not stutter as he left the villa and out through the service gates. Idle dreams and impossibilities.

Most likely, the young man was merely extraordinarily attractive.

Anders knelt in the center of the empty atrium, eyes demurely half-closed to shield himself from late afternoon sun; he did not see Florian beyond the archway. If he concentrated on the ground before him he could imagine an empty villa behind the columns. All around him he heard a murmur of low voices. For all the years he spent in the tower, the Tevene he learned was a thousand years old and each harsh syllable tripped and mingled until the sound became a whir.

He breathed out, and breathed in too deeply for his nervousness; a braided black and gold rope tightened on his chest and he gasped. His collar and the long leather lead that hung from his neck felt too heavy without Saul to hold the other end of the weight. Rolling his shoulders, he released a bit of tension in his arms.

Seeing this, Mira adjusted the rope above him; his forearms, binded to one another, could now rest comfortably on his neck while he waited.

A hush fell over the greenery and what he assumed to be a crowd beyond. Anders turned his face to one side, hoping for a glimpse of Saul at his favourite table beneath a shade tree. The table had been moved, and his cheek began to burn as he realized they were all looking at him. Their gaze was a palpable force like hands lifted just off his body, heated where he was not covered in lines. Between his legs where he was already hard, aching through the night with wanting, his cock began to cool at the tip where precum gathered and trickled down the underside.

Anders closed his eyes and bit his lip but the droplet touched him like a finger tip and he moaned aloud, in the silence created with the stillness of his audience, as if they all took a collective breath, holding it as they stared at him, an exotic pet in a cage, every move recorded. He only then noticed that the fountain had been turned off, and even the birds had been caged away elsewhere.

Irrationally, he wished for a rainstorm. The kind that only came in the summer, with canvas tied taut to the rails and his cries smothered and hidden by a backdrop of drumming, lost in a song of wind and rain.

All his hopes were as hoping for nature to change its course, since Saul.

Accepting was far easier than struggling. Anders shifted his weight on his heels, facing forward once more. His eyes gravitated to a shock of iron gray hair - his lover standing beneath a curving archway, his black and gold tunic a perfect match to Anders' ropes. Anders thought he saw him smile, a hint of brightness against dusky skin, and the ropes tightened all over him suddenly, as though Saul was not standing across this distance but next to him, pulling his strings.

His cheeks tingled with his blushing; then he gasped, as he finally remembered what it meant to be breathing again.

Saul came closer, handing a wooden tray for Mira to hold. Anders dared not stare at it, but metal on the tray caught the sun, a paring knife sitting next to something dull and golden, oddly shaped like a hand. Anders recalled the shape of it in textbooks - a flavouring root of some sort for upset stomachs - but could not name it.

While he was thus occupied, Saul had taken the time to untie the knot above Anders, turning the rope until his arms were free. The rest of him remained wrapped in the harness that he regarded as a piece of clothing by now, one he felt odd to be without.

No command was given, so Anders held his elbows behind his head, the way they were before the ropes came off. Saul sat down, crosslegged, not too far away but just out of reach. Mira knelt down further, tray on the ground and she leaned over it, carving a long tapered shape from a piece of the root.

"Come here," Saul said quietly and patted his knee.

Everyone waited, holding their breath, watching his every move. Mira shaved the skin off the root in long strands, working a knife as she worked ropes delicate and precise, revealing light yellow flesh beneath. Even her blade was silent.

Letting go of his elbows and placing his hands down on the rug so thin he could feel the ground through the padding, Anders wanted to crawl forward, like so many other days when he was summoned. Before his chin even moved forward an inch, Saul narrowed his eyes.

This was a test. Anders dipped his head down and picked up the end of the lead with his teeth, closed-mouthed and as gracefully as he was able. Crawling the short distance, he positioned himself over Saul's lap, bending his neck to deposit the leash in Saul's hand.

Saul took the leash and wrapped it around his wrist. It was bare and the bracelet was gone. Anders had no time to wonder about it, as Saul slapped the insides of his thighs, forcing them wider apart and his waist dropping lower until they almost touched; his fingers traveled down Anders' back, tracing a bump in his tailbone, touching too lightly over his entrance and he tightened and raised himself shamelessly, as if that could make them stay. The same hand kept moving down, testing the tightness of his balls, a quick investigative brush to the underside of his cock, coming away wet.

He could not see behind him but he could imagine it, and he could hear the soft chuckles from around him, the crowd seeing a glistening line connecting Saul's fingers to his private places. His cheeks flamed. He did not move. Months ago he might have impulsively rubbed himself against Saul, in heat, in need of friction and touch, but submission required more than a simple shift of responsibility; it necessitated a stillness of his own wants, a greater control of his desires.

Saul tilted Anders' chin so he could not look down. The leather wrapped around his wrist bumped Anders' cheek.

"Perfect," Saul whispered, so close Anders was probably the only one who heard him.

As quickly as that word came pain flared on his arse, making him stagger, the tops of his thighs bumping up against Saul's knee at the impact. A thumb stroked his cheek gently; Anders swayed and moved back to where he was, bracing his hands on the rug, his chest rubbing on the rough linen pants Saul chose to wear tonight, then the pain came again. He did not remember Saul ever hitting him like this, the heat of his hands, the smoothness of his palm, both familiar and strange, and it was hurting him, touching him, and yet the weight between his legs spoke plainly of his interest. Each slap came down harder than the last, and landed in different places, never a predictable rhythm, never the exact spot. Soon his arse was hot and stinging as redly as his face, his cries pained and yet needy, each moan lustful and urgent as what echoed off their bedroom walls every night when he laid spread beneath Saul.

His locked elbows threatened to give out. A finger was rubbing down the crease of his arse, where he was not hit, at least, and there the pain surrounding that tight pucker only made it feel more sensitive. Each circle of Saul's fingers, light and dry and velvet soft, made him shiver.

Saul rolled his forearm once, twice, unravelling the leather lead. Giving Anders a soft pat on his reddened backside that felt like one of the harder slaps, he gave a soft command. "Bring one of the ginger roots to me. Use your lips, not your teeth."

His cock brushed over Saul's knee as he moved, and he gasped aloud, lingering a second too long. Then he was stinging again, a few soft slaps landing quickly on reddened skin, driving him towards Mira and her tray. One of the long shapes she was carving had been finished, shaved into a lightly crooked finger, a little wider than his thumb. Anders bent and caught it between his lips, and with it came a stinging coolness. Where the tip of his tongue touched it by accident it burned there too, a light tingle that did not leave as he withdrew.

He tried not to think of where Saul planned for it to go, shaped as it was; as he turned and crawled back it was plain to everyone he craved, with the harness spreading his cheeks and his entrance clenching visibly against emptiness.

Obediently he draped his body over Saul's legs, dropping the finger-shaped root into his waiting palm.

His lips stung where it met his teeth, not unlike being kissed too hard, not unlike being kissed by Saul. He licked them then, thinking of Saul and his kisses swelling them; as his tongue darted out it touched him, cool and moist on his skin, organic in the way it yielded to his body. It waited for him like the way Saul waited for him, never pushing while he adjusted, holding still for his body to open and accept.

It slipped through the first tightness easily, just a finger's width and not unpleasant as he closed over a narrow ridge carved into its tip.

Saul turned the plug downwards, the tip of it searching, seeking not quite as expertly as his fingers; when it came rubbing down like fire inside him Anders did not know what to think - he called out loud and hoarse and indistinct, primal as pain and pleasure fought and each won its ground, his thighs shaking and his hands kneading the rug, tearing at threads with his fingernails. He could not understand how something so small could feel so overwhelming; it made him writhe with want, and it was want that made these noises, bedroom sounds, soft whimpers and sighs as the tip brushed over his spot, pleasure flaring to soothe the burn, and with it a deep longing to be filled.

Slow burning tingles spread over his thighs, over his reddened arse still stinging, like pins occasionally scratching down, unpredictable.

He wanted it out. He wanted Saul inside him. He wanted quiet and darkness and their chambers with Saul pushing him down, the only voice his own and Saul's soft grunts and their bodies moving together.

Anders' mouth hung open and his eyes watered. If they were alone he would have begged already, but he was a spectacle here, a picture of the obedient, responsive slave, and his desires were as nothing. The only valid desire was to please, to feel his master's pride glowing at his back.

He was a plaything waiting for his next command. That thought did not pain him.

His command came in a tug at his collar and a soft hand palming up his chest. Anders sat up on his heels, his knees wide apart as he faced Saul, the act of moving drawing out more juices from the root and he bit his lip to stop himself from crying - the burning intensified by the second and he could not relax with it inside him, but relaxing was the only way to ease the pain. Saul kissed his temple, wrapping his arms around Anders' shoulders, guiding his hands to rest at his sides.

A slight commotion in the periphery of the atrium reminded him that they were still watching him closely, perhaps moving to get a better view. Now he presented himself to them, arching his back slightly, the ropes over his chest pinching his nipples, drawing out a stifled moan. His want jutted out beneath him, still achingly hard in spite of the pain.

Mira presented the tray, bending to touch the rug with her forehead; a long strip of ginger peel and a long strand of ginger laid side by side. Saul took the peel first, one side dull and dry, the other dripping with water and glistening in the sun.

The stinging coolness of the peel touching his cock was much like the way it felt inside him, just a mild cooling sensation at first, then a heat that lingered, becoming too hot over time. Saul had wrapped the peel around Anders' erection, avoiding its tip where it was most sensitive, fresh juice of the ginger peel combined with the slickness that dripped from the tip of his cock. It slid down smoothly and up, stopping just short of the sensitive glans; it was a test of his control to not thrust into the hand holding him, to hold still and let himself be handled.

The desire to please overcame his body's needs. Anders, feverishly heavy-lidded, met Saul's eyes and their calm and saw that it was worth it.

'I need this pliable," Saul commanded, quiet but audible to all those around them. "Do it."

The hard nubs of his nipples grew harder still as Saul dipped forward and ran his tongue in between the ropes, drawing a circle around one, then the other. In Saul's hand he softened, the gradually growing stinging of ginger juice on thin velvet skin finally too much.

An approving kiss pressed to his lips and a smile he saw through tear-filled eyes gave him all the affirmation he needed. Saul took the last offering from Mira's tray, and with Anders' softened cock in hand, he began to slowly, carefully ease the ginger through the slit at the top.

It felt ticklish at first when it was shielded by precome at the tip. Then it sunk down lower and the wholly new sensation startled him, both as it intruded where nothing had touched him before, and the burning tingle that seemed softer here. Quickly, immediately after he thought this was not so difficult after all, pain flared, all-consuming, burning like fire, like electricity, like lightning and not the good kind. He pushed at the ground to either side, struggling to remain upright, trying not to scream - but it was hopeless - and he wailed brokenly with his head tipped close to his chest, making the sound as small as possible.

Tears rolled down his nose to the rug beneath him, but this did not come to his notice.

Then as if to test him, to see if he would topple, Saul withdrew the strand until it nearly left him then pushed it inside again. The sensation was sharper this time, as was his cry of desperation; suddenly he realized he was past his limits. Anders could not endure this, not while his body clenched down on the ginger in his arse in response to the strange intrusion in his cock, turning his lower half into a raging inferno. He wanted to rock against the finger inside him, touching that spot enough for the pleasure to overcome the pain, but he could not.

Real shame laid in bringing shame to Saul, and belatedly, after all this time of knowing Saul, he knew his master had endured far worse, for far longer.

Anders' arms shook with tension, elbows locked, and his legs shuddered as the ginger strand was pulled out and slipped in again, a repeating motion that mimicked how they coupled, a slow drawing out and a quick thrust, leaving him breathless and faint. It was too much; he could not withstand any more without begging for him to stop, the end of the strand pushing close to his spot from the other side even as it burned and tormented, the tip of the finger in his arse rubbing as he realized he rocked gently against it with unerring instinct.

Saul kissed him, leaning just far enough for a light touch, and Anders opened up in every way to let him in, opened to his master, his at every moment. He let that tongue anchor him instead. Here was his master, his lover, a constant in a sea of pain and pleasure that threatened to wash him away. He could not control his limbs any longer, nor the rest of him; his thoughts were a hot mess, a jumble of wanting and a natural fear of the pain, and yet even now all he wanted was Saul behind him, or Saul pushing his knees against his chest and his cock inside, hands pulling and twisting his ropes until he was nothing but tension and pleasure and cries echoing off stone.

"Yes," he heard, but Saul did not speak. He remembered old words, months ago now that felt like years, another life, the man he was, hard and brittle and afraid. He wanted the same thing then too, lying in a bed, tied down next to Saul, before he began to think of his master with nothing but affection.

How fragile it was to be unyielding. Fragile and easily broken. Better to bend and accept than to fight and shatter, never able to piece himself together again.

Anders let himself be kissed; his mouth filled with his master's tongue, his cock stretching from the inside out and the pain turned his mind inside out, his arse cheeks still hurting and where the ginger filled him seemed mild by comparison, a warming pressure that only gave him a longing for more, more of anything.

"What shall we do with you?" Saul asked, in the near silence. A silence filled exclusively with Anders' sounds, soft gasps and whimpers and the occasional sobbing. He could reign none of it in, not any longer.

Anders wanted to answer - anything. Anything at all. They could all come forward and take turns with his mouth, to fuck him if that was what they wanted, to bend him over their knees and hit him. He would not break; and his skin itched and prickled, as if it craved touch. He thought he would go mad, nervous energy crawling on his arms and the back of his legs.

It did not occur to him to ask at all if he was already mad, to writhe and beg with his body the way he did in front of a crowd, to ask for more when he was given nothing but pain. As Saul turned him, neglecting his cock, he whined pitifully, and when the finger of ginger was twisted and removed, the emptiness of it made him beg, with words and moans and a litany of ‘please’.

Only when a fresh piece of ginger was being pushed inside of him did he realize that it became less effective over time. The strand in his cock was also replaced, and they brought on a fresh wave of tears, even as he still wanted, craving as Saul bent Anders over his lap, the skin of his sac brushing the rough fabric of Saul's loose pants. This time, when a hand came slapping down hard on his arse again, his cries became distinctly pleasure-wrought, Saul keeping his head back to show his expression with a hand in his hair, thoroughly debauched in the way his eyes not wincing at the pain and his lips dry from not having a moment in between his moaning to lick them.

When at last Saul seemed to be done with the task of showing everyone how well Anders enjoyed his punishment, relishing his master's touch be it a gentle kiss or a hard slap on tender skin, he kissed the cooling tracks left by tears on Anders' cheek, and mouthed a word to his skin, "beautiful."

Anders did not want to face how cold his master was, the months of sweetness and love shaved down to one word, how he always saw Anders this way when he caved. All Saul wanted from him, since the first day, was his submission, and Anders gave that and more. For love.

Saul guided Anders' limbs as he struggled to remain upright on all fours, still filled and hurting, pulling Anders' head into his lap, running his hands down over pale shoulders and down his back, stroking over each dark line of rope, then finally reaching the parted lines that ran down the crease to keep him open. He gripped the swollen flesh in his hands, and slowing smoothed his hands back up, strumming at his strings.

Their eyes met; Anders hated how calm they were, as he was wild and Saul was constant, his cock beneath the fabric soft and uninterested. A teasing smile sent his way and a nod as Anders rubbed his chin over the mound. That was command enough.

The tops of his ears were burning red; he could hear his heart beating too fast, unlike the calm that flowed through Saul's thighs under Anders' hands. Anders gripped his hips, breathing softly into the bundle of loose cloth and flesh beneath, mouthing the soft bump until it grew hard enough to show its shape through the fabric. He found the end of it, then traced the edges of the glans with his nose, until moisture seeped through the tip enough for him to taste it, salt on his tongue.

He ran his teeth over the top gently, then kissed his way up to the strings tied in a knot at Saul's waist. Anders pulled them free. The waist band fell, fabric tented at his prize, and he peeled back the cloth to find Saul half-hard under it. Anders heard an approving hum from above him and a murmur growing all around them.

They came to see Saul, too, not just his slave. And he would have, Anders thought, if he was a magister and Saul was out of reach, beautiful, graceful, mesmerizing. His cock sprang free, dark and bruised rose pink at its head, glistening on top of a nest of dark hair.

Anders pressed his nose into the crease where thigh met hip, and kissed his way down, breathing in deep at the curls, scented lightly like the rest of him, musky beneath the oils. As he reached the sac the urge to taste him made him risk a lick, and when no reprimand came, he pulled one side into his mouth with his tongue, warming it until Saul tugged his collar, leather lead still turned tight around his wrist, pulling him up until his lips were back at a level with Saul's cock. Anders wrapped his lips over the top and took it down in one slow and smooth motion, breathing in just before it hit the back of his throat.

He did not stop, but let it pass through that tight spot, breathing out slowly, the muscles in his throat fluttering and momentarily forgetting his own struggles against the pain, with the heat on his lips, the saltiness of Saul's skin, the scent of Saul in his nose. Anders could not help himself. With Saul's cock wide in him, barely room to breathe, he began to moan softly, his arse rocking back and forth against the fingerling of ginger inside him.

He could do this for hours, taking Saul in and letting him loose, his mind going hazy and light with each shallow breath. It was so hard to know when Saul was interested in him, wanted him, for the first weeks, the first months, and with the soft sighs above him and the flesh he worked over growing hard and steely, it left far less room for doubt.

His body's wants were secondary to pleasing his master; and if his master was pleased then his own desires were sated, even if it meant he went to bed hard and longing. He wanted this love, the affectionate approval of hands on his chin, hands in his hair, chest against his back as he slept.

His cock felt too full and his skin was tight and pained and the ginger inside him was becoming less heated, but his master was pleased; Anders' eyes glazed over with the pleasure of it, the feel of velvet skin on his tongue and his mouth filled with his master and an approving sigh echoing in his ears.

When Saul tugged on his collar again, pulling him up and back to kiss him, he whimpered, disappointed, until Saul licked his lips open and slipped his fingers into Anders' hair, seemingly desperate and needy. A hand reached down behind him and worked the plug of ginger free, discarding it on the rug beneath him, then Saul lifted him, thumbs dipping into the down in his underarms, turning him to face away, turning his world around.

The sun was setting and it was darker; Anders had not noticed. The lanterns were already lit and they hung from the trees, golden to match his hair, their light glinting off gilt in his ropes.

A short strand of ginger curved out the top of his cock. It was a strange sight to see; he was soft, and could not grow harder with the root still inside him, even though enough time had passed that the pain had lessened to a dull ache and a fullness with which he was unaccustomed. Saul moved his hair aside and kissed his neck above his collar, making him shiver. He reached around and strummed down the lines criss-crossing Anders' chest and his abdomen, his fingernails lingering on exposed skin, skimming over the hairless line of his pelvis just short of touching the trail of blond hair leading downwards.

Anders felt the smooth head of Saul's cock nudging at him and cool pressure of the top of a small glass bottle against his lower back. A stream of oil tickled down the cleft and smooth velvety skin rubbed down, missing his clenching hole. Then the shaft was pushed between his arse cheeks again, teasing him with the promise of fullness.

His limbs shook from the exhaustion of pain-taking, and that strange feeling low in his belly, and lower still, he could well imagine a literal fire burning him from the inside out. It filled him with an intense longing, as though he was touched within and yet empty, and that was nearly enough to make him push back against Saul and plead.

He whispered a plea softly, and each time he blinked hard to clear the halos in his vision, tears flowed over his temples and back behind his ears.

Saul held him, surreptitiously hooking his thumbs beneath strands of rope, lifting him, teasing him with how close they were, taking his weight; without him Anders might topple.

"Show me you want me," he kissed the back of Anders' ear as an excuse to be close, for words to pass between them without the crowd knowing. Soft words, vibrating words that blushed his skin. "I know you're tired, slave. I won't let you fall."

His legs were like jelly and his arms dragged down with boneless fatigue but he turned and kissed his lover, just enough stubble by his mouth to remind Anders of the lateness of the day. True to his word, Saul lifted him just enough that he found the place to ground down, slipping the first time; his cock twitched in frustration.

His legs barely held him as he pushed himself to try again. Trusting in Saul, he let himself be lifted.

And he sank down as slowly as he had with his mouth, one long stroke through stretch and sharp pain, the wide head brushing past that spot, stoked as low flames, the ever-present bead in his harness pressing in from the outside. Saul held his softened cock in one hand, and with his thumb he flicked the length of ginger peeking through the slit. It twisted, releasing just enough fresh juice to burn him all over again.

Anders screamed. He lost control over the quiet sobbing and cried out, his moans turning into open weeping, taking lungfuls of air as his body clamped down tight over Saul, slipping the rest of the way down when his legs gave out. His hands thrashed and lost their place and they landed in front of him, gripping Saul's thighs as their bodies pressed together.

His master took his cock in hand and turned the strand inside again.

Anders was lost in the pain that blinded him to all other senses. He forgot the crowd that surrounded him on all sides, the lanterns that illuminated his body, the rising moon above, a thin sliver hardly adding to the light. Even Saul was a blur of hands and skin and cock and solid, silk covered chest, breath on his neck; lover and tormentor, master.

"Yes," fingers cradling his cock, something slipping inside and out and what it was, he had forgotten. His eyes rolled blankly upwards, seeing nothing but hazy light. He repeated the meaningless word, as the tension built beyond what he could take, beyond anything ever given even in his months of training, beyond possibility. He repeated, "yes, yes."

He found strength to raise himself up higher, pulling away enough to sink down again, finding the right angle blindly, crying out in pleasure with mysterious, wonderful pain. It filled his head with sunlight and his mouth with bubbling giggles, high and strange and free. But his chest was so tight, as full as the rest of him, wrapped skin and soft caresses and too much of everything, his eyes rolling up and up and he could not see, only the intoxication left, dizzy and drunk on an overload of his senses.

He forgot his name; he answered to slave, he had answered to slave and heard it as love for - he forgot how long.

His master pulled him back, heat radiating through his tunic and a steady thump in his chest, teeth scratching along Anders' neck. Anders tipped his head, hair falling past and raising gooseflesh over his arms, exposing more skin, hoping for more touch. "Slave. Little pet. What do you want?"

"I want to please you," it was the only answer he was ever allowed to give. "Master."

"Do you want me to fuck you?"

Anders thought of Saul pushing him down on the rug, feeling the ground cold beneath him. He could hardly breathe, "If it pleases you, master."

Saul smiled against his hairline, breath ghosting Anders' earlobe, stubble catching his hair tugging slightly on his scalp, "It would please me to hear you beg for me."

"Please, master," he did not dare move any longer, with Saul lodged inside of him and one arm across his torso, and no permission to continue. "Please, I ..."

"I?" One word tinged with metallic cold shot down his spine. Emotionless and dead hollow, a stranger's whisper by his ear.

"Your slave needs to be fucked, master," he corrected himself, clinging to skin beneath his hands, barely hanging on to the warmth lingering from his master's breath. Fear and love mingled as he hung over that edge with just one small word separating him from nothing and everything, "please."

He expected to be pushed into the rug, expected chafing of rough fibers across his chest, but there was instead a hand in his hair, holding his gaze forward. Saul pushed him just far enough to separate them, one hand holding his hips still and another keeping his face upturned, and with a sudden thrust forward he began to move.

The angle was all wrong - not wrong, just not for Anders, not a thought given to how this might hurt - and Saul slapped his hips against Anders' arse without regard for the swelling in the flesh from his hands. This was what he wanted, what he asked for, what he craved, and did he not beg for it?

Into the night he cried out for his master, each meeting of their bodies made him want more, for it was not enough, and he pleaded again, from his mouth a string of pleas, affirmations and pleasure and the sobs of pain that were no longer just pain.

Pain became more, adding to the fullness and tension that built and built without an end.

"You are wonderful," Saul slowed, keeping his pace steady and pushing back enough to change the angle until Anders' cries were desperate, his cock hanging limp with that thing inside him still, keeping the pressure in. "You are so good I might even want to see you come."

"If it pleases you -" he began, cut short by Saul easing the strand of ginger out, pulling it slowly while running his fingers up the shaft to bring it to hardness.

He was already pushed past the point of no return, and if not for a lack of command, he would have come on his belly, on the rug in front of him, with Saul's hand and its heat surrounding him. It squeezed him down, only a little pain and disappointing edge that seemed just out of reach, always; Anders bore it without complaint. His body, a slave's, his pleasure, a slave's - none of it belonged to him. Anders leaned back and waited, opened, accepting, the picture of obedience.

What followed was hard and savage, yet nothing more brutal than their everyday coupling, but the world came back; the lanterns became too bright and behind them were magisters and their slaves, having moved closer, so many of them behind the pillars now illuminated, holding their wine cups and sitting on loungers and leaning on shade trees.

His eyes met theirs and his gaze moved from one to another, Saul pumping inside of him and every moment Anders showed his pleasure. Once he was terrified of being observed and he thought his body and his desires brought him shame; now he smiled as his master whispered encouragement in his ear.

"Beautiful slave." Saul. Saul, with his wide shoulders and surprising strength, lifting him and rolling him and pulling the ropes back against his body for the knots to all press into him like teeth and lips and fingers, all of them a part of Saul.

Anders waited for the stilling of his hips before Saul would push into him too hard, too fast; and he thought without irony that anyone would break under his body, and it was no shame at all to succumb to his touch.

When Saul came, pulsing hard inside him, Anders felt an answering twinge of his own. He pleased his master.

"My pet. You've done so well," sweet kisses for him, soft and feathery love. A hand holding his cock, pressing it down against his stomach, a sharp command, harsh and no room for misinterpretation. "Show them how you listen. Now come."

Permission like opening a gate to a dam, and water coming through torrentuous in its intensity, giving him no choice but to obey. Saul's fingers hardly moved, but Anders spasmed and came, clutching at his lover still hard inside him, moaning his orgasm into the night, pleasure etched plainly for everyone to see. His release coated his stomach and splattered his chin, golden in lantern light.

He wanted to believe that it was love, or at least his need for his master's approval. But it could be as simple as the compulsion to submit to the man who called him slave.

Love. Saul called him love. But he'd never called him love.

Saul kissed him again, tipping his head up and Anders' nose bumped his chin and he stopped thinking past those lips. He had no strength left, never any strength left to fight after Saul; his master, who gave him sweet dreamless nights.

Saul kissed his cheeks, his eyelids, his temples; precious thing, slave.

"Now, rest," Saul had that crease between his eyebrows again. Anders wanted to rub it out. He giggled softly at the private pun, and Saul kissed him, signalling quiet. "I'll take care of everything."

Anders sobered at his words, enough to feel cold in his hands, the kind of cold that made him shudder, wishing he could push away from the ground to hold on, the words nearly slipping out. _Don't leave me._ But Saul had already turned from him; Mira crossed the atrium softly on bare feet, not even a blush to mar half her face without a mask, as if Anders hadn't just been thoroughly taken in front of a crowd.

She held a steaming cloth out to him, hot water for his chest, a drink for this dry throat, hands to stroke his hair as he drifted off to sleep with the murmurs and the clanking of metal wine cups, conversations as distant as the other side of Thedas.

He was not awake for a sheet of paper bearing a name and a vial of his blood changing hands. No actual coin was exchanged; the Imperium registry handled transactions involving such high sums for fear that the magisters would cheat them out of their tithes and taxes.

Not that anyone would dare.

Saul retreated to his rooms alone. Instead of lighting the brazier, or having a slave light it for him, he brought with him a candle instead to light his way through the hallways and the stairs. He looked out of an open archway to the balcony, but did not step outside, for the lanterns spilled their illumination upon the tiles.

He blew out that single candle and let himself be cloaked in darkness.

Anders slept the sleep of the exhausted, and he did not wake until the slaves lifted his litter and he felt his center moving and the dizziness that came every time. Usually, that still would not have woken him, but this time they lifted faster and it was heavier. Mira still held his head in her lap, running her fingers gently through his hair.

Mira never left the villa, not in the months he spent with Saul. It was enough to jar him out of drowsiness. Anders sat up suddenly, pushing Mira aside in his haste.

Heavy canvas covered the sides of the litter but nothing tied the edges shut. Anders reached out to pull the curtain back, his hand stopping dead before reaching the curtain, feeling Mira's hand on his elbow.

He had to have one last glimpse of Saul. With a cautious crawl across the bottom of the litter, Anders peeked through the slit in the curtain. He could see the villa. The rooms were dark.

Mira wrapped her arms around him, head leaning on his back, and she rubbed the place over his heart. Anders had not thought he would feel this way.

But when the tears came again, and he tried to hold them in so no one could hear them, so all they gave their new master was silence, only one regret came to mind.

_We left him all alone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can all thank CaptainCritical for the last minute beta - otherwise this would have taken another week.
> 
> I have to keep my chapter length to half this size, next time. 8k is just far too much for me to try to edit. @_@
> 
> (And sooo much smut. I guess after three plot chapters I really needed to get it out of my system.)


	23. Strange Perceptions

On the third day of keeping Garrett Hawke company and reluctantly acting as a tour guide, Darinius determined that the Champion of Kirkwall was either an impossibly powerful mage or an extremely lucky idiot.

He knew for certain of the latter; the court of magisters might need to convene on the matter of the former.

One thing was certain: Hawke was likeable, and he seemed to accept everyone's word at face value. In turn the people who spoke to him came away with an increased sense of self-importance.

Darin heard it called charisma three times only yesterday.

Darin himself had never been charismatic, nor was he deluded for a single second that he gained trust by smiling - his smiles often had the opposite effect. Having spent his years watching the vipers his father called friends from the shadows, he learned a thing or two about diplomacy, and he learned enough to know he had no natural talent for it.

Even his title and his possessions came to him by sheer luck, a hastily decided duel, _and never forget, a bargain struck in a fit of passion._

Darin enjoyed the finer things in life - unlike a friend of his so spartan in his ways as to be considered acetic - but in order to continue enjoying liberty, it was paramount to gain rank. Middling rank was best; not high enough to incite jealousy or to invite duels for everything you own, and not low enough to be utterly powerless and live in fear of the draft. Make powerful friends, and be certain that the people one betrayed met an untimely end before they got wise.

Tevinter was just as dangerous for a mage as it was anywhere else. It was especially dangerous for a mage like Garrett Hawke, oblivious to its convoluted ways.

Seeing how Hawke conducted himself as though he belonged, following Darin around like one of those lost mabari he read about in books, made him nearly envious. But Hawke was also lost. Yes, that was the perfect word for him, that, and sullen. Those that did not have to spend entire days with him would not understand - Hawke leaked magic, and it felt like a hex.

Yet another reason to settle him quickly, with a villa of his own and a house full of slaves. He could sulk elsewhere, far away from Darin's company.

Darin pulled his quill off the deed, leaving a splatter of wild ink and a scratch on thick cotton paper next to a label that read 'Witness.' Six hundred slaves, twelve votes in the senate to Darin's three, orchards full of wine grapes well away from the Silent Plains, and a villa so close to the Hall of Magisters that he didn't even need a litter for traveling.

The registry might allow him to keep it all if he'd stay out of all but the most important parties.

"What does a magister do, exactly?" Hawke passed another signed document to a tranquil. The Minrathous circle had no fraternities, no circle politics, but a life of tranquility was always an option.

Enchantments worked the same way everywhere. A stamp and a dash of lyrium sealed his contract, with honor and a strange mode of conduct too ancient for anyone to absorb in a lifetime.

Darin slapped his hand down on the table.

"For you? Pay your taxes."

"What?" Hawke's eyes widened, taken aback.

"Whatever you want," Darin leaned on his armrest and continued, shoving the rest of the documents Hawke's way. "You can research the long-term effects of lyrium, formulate stronger potions if herbalism's your thing, join the war effort if you're big on the whole hero-business - which I've been told you are but I've also been told to dissuade you from getting yourself killed, among other things."

"Pay my taxes? That's the first thing that comes to mind?"

"You can do anything in Tevinter," Darin flipped his quill in a nervous habit he did not remember developing, always moving his hands, drawing attention away from his eyes. "Anything except tax evasion. That and not paying the yearly tithe to the chantry. It's nice to appear pious but it's unnecessary. You just have to pay the tithe."

"What happens if you don't pay them?" Hawke hovered above another contract, line deepening between his brows.

"You get a very public, very painful death. So I've been told," Darin's mouth pulled into a grim line as Hawke's jaw fell. "It's an awfully dumb way to go, so no magister has tried to evade his taxes for about, oh, three hundred and fifty years. Just sign it."

A week with Garrett Hawke - four days to go - bought him a reprieve from his work, ten new slaves, personal favors from the Archon and the Divine. The last was worth more than all the slaves in the world, and yet if Hawke died in the coming months due to his stupidity, then it was one week wasted.

Unbearable thought, really. Nearly as unbearable as spending a week with Garrett Hawke. He wondered how his friends tolerated him.

Darin had a feeling that Hawke just had a way of putting himself in situations where people were forced to put up with him.

"What is this?" Hawke held a large, illuminated contract with his thumb and forefinger and only by its corner, as though it was on fire. Names written in tightly spaced script covered it from corner to corner, one added to the next with no apparent care taken for order.

Every magister had one. It was an accounting of household slaves - with their new names if their masters deemed a slave worthy of one, and a number if they worked in the fields.

It did not surprise Darin at all that "Fenris" was written larger than the others and set apart; he was a favoured slave, a master's pet. Florian was written in his ledger as such. It was a pain to have it struck out.

Florian left behind a blank spot that was more of an eyesore than his name ever was.

"It's a list of all the slaves you own," Darin did not touch it gingerly as Hawke had, and he scratched his name in the witness box as casually as signing for a collection of wine.

He signed for the wine too. Danarius was always so proud of his wine collection. Shame about the new owner who could not tell white vinegar to Pavali. Darin pushed the contract back to Hawke.

Hawke stared at the parchment as though at any moment it would turn into a demon and devour his soul.

"What if I don't want to own slaves? What then?" Hawke asked, after a moment. "What if I just let someone go?"

"No, you can't. There's a head tax on every slave you own, and you have to pay that over the duration of their contracts. If you die in the mean time - like Danarius had - their ownership passes to the government. After five years they can buy their own way out."

"And if they can't?"

"The ones who want out will find the money. The ones who don't, stay. It's a bit late to change your mind now."

Darin strummed his empty hands on the smooth surface of their oaken table. They would have to watch this one carefully; he, for one, was not fooled. They offered Hawke gold and slaves and most of all, safety from the chantry. Hawke was a man grown used to such things, living in hightown as he had for six full years. Hawke was also a simple person, a simple man, and if Darin could offer him the one thing to ensure Hawke's loyalty, he would.

Last time he called on Saul, he was busy with the preparations and busy with writing out all the invitations. Darin backhanded every slave that brought him the post without an invite for a week straght until his hand was sore.

Actually, he might have sprained it. Darin turned his forearm and listened for a soft click and checked how one wrist was just a touch wider than the other. And here was another reason why he needed a healing slave; leverage, certainly, but having all his aches taken care of without leaving his villa was also a plus.

If Saul didn't want to give up his slave to Garrett Hawke, then Darin would just have to find another way.

Saul managed to lock Anders away in one of the most secured households in all of Tevinter. Magister Priscus had reached the age of seventy without much incident, with a few duels carefully selected, probably arranged with secret backroom deals, opponents weakened by a fall or strong wine or a tumble with the wrong whore that left one with a distracting itch. His sons were not so calculating, and therefore both deceased, dead on the front lines in honorable battle.

It was widely rumoured that Priscus was how they ended up vanguards in the war, a couple of fine sacrifices. Darin would have to check the status of their children. By his estimate they might be ready to enter a glorious new life in politics, and looking to fast track by dueling.

They were not likely to die in these duels, but why risk possible servitude? A trip to a home with a healing mage seemed to be in order. Darin nursed his wrist while strumming on the armrest with the other as Hawke stared at the piles and piles of things he inherited that another man spent a lifetime to accrue.

Hawke would have stayed anyhow, even if all they gave him was a suite of rooms in the Circle; he might not have been content or happy, but he would have been safe, surrounded by bodyguards and served well enough as a symbol of mage pride. Maybe it was the furrow between his brows that did it, or the new hollow pallor in his cheeks. Whatever it was that made Darin want to work more for this man, he would, to his grave, deny the decision was due to altruism.

"All the political power a mage needs," Darin sighed through his nose and leaned a smidgen forward in his chair, remembering a time when he was desperate enough to use any means to save a friend. "But there's only one thing you want, isn't there?"

He shifted back and watched the minute twitches Hawke never noticed but Darin learned to read far too early, and Hawke was louder with his face while his mouth was shut.

Hawke still believed that his decisions mattered, it seemed, in spite of the life he led. Still naive.

When Darin was young he thought his life was his own, the decisions he made moment by moment deciding his fate like setting quill to paper and seeing the words trail after his thoughts. Then life changed Saul and him both; they were smaller then, but Saul had not yet grown past Darin's shoulders, and he seemed to shrink as he buried his nose into Darin's back, his tears soaking the back of his thin apprentice robes.

His own aging reflection was getting harder to face everyday. Darin wondered how Saul could stand to look at him at all.

Garrett Hawke fidgeted and did not answer. The art of small talk would have to be taught, the art of stalling and changing the subject was ever more needed. Darin decided his fate for him, as Hawke could not, "sign the rest of the papers. Promise you'll stay put and I will figure out a way to get you what you actually want."

"Don't bother," Hawke's tone was flat and he did not look up.

Darin rolled his eyes at the sound of dramatic despair, though it did make him realize, and in his realization sadness near turned his smile into a frown. How far removed was he from human that he did not see this at all?

"Oh, is that what you think?" Darin's smiled turned into a laugh into a harsh chuckle, cutting him off mid-sentence. It was a minute before he could speak again, wiping away tears he needed not explain, "your friend's been sold."

Incredulity was easy to read. Hawke parted his lips like a simpleton; how unexpected, that out of all the unbelievable wonders of Minrathous Hawke would be fixated on the devotion of a slaver lord for a bodyslave.

"He wouldn't have," Hawke looked past Darin at a memory, at promises of affection whispered and not returned.

"He's a slaver. Of course he would. He did. Sold to the highest bidder - for a ludicrous sum. For that amount of money Magister Priscus is probably lending him out to friends for favors -"

"Stop it," he had a spine beneath all that Fereldan fur, thought his was the first time Darin caught the sight of it. The set of his shoulders widened and the softness ebbed away as lines crowded his brow. "I don't want to hear it."

Darin met him straight on, setting the abyss of his gaze against Hawke's crumbling, never quite mortared shell, his hands braced on his chair and still. "Tell me something, Hawke. When you plug your ears and close your eyes, does the world stop existing? If I stop talking about it, does that mean your friend isn't tied up to a rack somewhere entertaining whomever happens to be visiting?"

If he stared hard enough he could make out a throbbing vein on Hawke's forehead, quick emotions easily induced, readily counted on. Into the haze of anger Darin spoke softly of Anders' possible fates.

Strangely, it seemed to make him less angry to be told that Anders was possibly suffering. At one point Hawke might have smiled, an elusive twitch Darin thought he imagined, jarring enough to make him pause in his telling.

The expression gave Darin an idea he shook off immediately, but could not quite forget; maybe Hawke belonged in the Imperium, despite the Imperium's own reservations.

In the third largest villa in the government district, strategically just smaller than the villas of the few higher ranked magisters, Anders' new life was nothing like Darin described.

Priscus had weak ankles, scarred liver and a disagreeable heart; he suffered from nothing more fatal than aging. Magic could not ultimately prolong life, at least not without a cost, and no one was willing to condemn his soul to the void for another thirty mortal years when seventy was enough. He was of an age, and of a rank, to pose no danger to his fellows, and old enough that waiting for him to die was more courteous than challenging him to a duel for a move up the political ladder.

His life might have been partially spent tormenting his slaves the same way other magisters had done, yet Anders could not find it in himself to resent an old man who needed another mage's magic just to walk on his own two feet.

How different it was to be a person again, but treated as nothing more than a tool. Stranger still to miss what some would consider lesser treatment. In his new master's home, his work was light and utilized the skills he learned in the Circle, spending most of his days making potions. While other slaves had to live in a compound, some chained to their closely packed bunk beds, Anders had his own rooms close to the master suite, with Mira as his personal servant and a constant, silent companion.

Anders could not remember the last time he felt so alone. It was a distinct kind of loneliness like thirsting at sea, surrounded by people and none that would speak to him.

His collar weighed nearly nothing without its leather and jewel leash. For the entire first day he worried at the latch. The first night in his new bed he dreamt of Saul, sitting in his atrium in the afternoon with the leash wrapped around his wrist, young Turin resting by his feet like a puppy.

He woke shivering, a sheen of sweat drying on his neck, his back sticking to a thin sheet covering his mattress. All he remembered was the bright grey of Saul's eyes looking down warm and loving at his new slave.

His chest felt hollow, his body felt hollow, and when his hand snaked over his erection, fingers in his mouth to stifle his moans, imagining Saul holding him so gently as though he would break, only made that hollow ache, as empty, abandoned places ached. His hands felt wrong; there were callouses on his palms and the inside of his knuckles that could never be erased, from a life he barely remembered, and yet the months he spent with Saul left nothing on his skin, left him raw against the elements.

He stroked fingers too rough, too long, over silky skin, gasping as he bit a knuckle, ignoring the moisture in his eyes, and how his temples cooled. Morning sun cut past the edges of his curtains, throwing light into shadowy corners where his dreams could hide; then even this act became hollow, and his hand retreated as his body retreated and the weight between his legs became weightless, only weighing down his mind with this incessant longing for someone he could no longer hold.

The second day was no easier, and neither was the third. His new life left him with nothing to complain about. He was treated better than the apprentices, and everyone was so respectful when they asked things of him - Anders wanted to scream.

The unfortunate fate that Darin imagined for Anders was only this: a tall tale. Garrett Hawke would have had no way to know, and Anders was not there to correct his assumptions.

It was on the night of the third day that Feynriel came to him. Anders was just about to turn in, having changed out of his robes into the plain undyed tunic and pants that all slaves wore.

His bed was every part the same as Saul's, perhaps not quite as wide. Anders sat at the edge and played with the sheet cover and thought, idly, how long one had to be a slave to prefer dressing and living as a slave.

It did not alarm him, and it did not occur to him, that he no longer dreamt of freedom.

Feynriel had to reintroduce himself, blushing and stammering through a few simple words while stealing glances at Anders' mouth. The boy might harbour a crush for the spirit-inbued mage who came to save him years ago, or more likely he was at the auction. Everyone who lived near the market had probably seen Anders out on a leash by now.

What he considered shameful just months ago only made him miss Saul, and this feeling between them, oddly like love.

"And what is it you need, Feynriel?" Anders asked as though Feynriel's cheeks and his ears did not seem to glow pink and he was not fidgeting endlessly with his hands. Then he smiled knowingly - well, the lad was of the right age. "I just made up a batch of salve today if you're meaning to ask for some."

"What? No," finally Feynriel calmed himself, but he clutched tight to the enchanted bands of silk on his forearms like a child with a comfort blanket. "I was wondering if you have an antidote for soldier's bane."

"I don't have that," Anders doubted that such a thing made a regular storeroom item in a magister's home. It was not his place to ask questions. "I can have the ingredients picked up in the morning and make a batch for you by noon. is there anything else?"

As soon as he began, Feynriel started biting on his lip and for a moment Anders thought he saw fear, and a flicker of guilt he knew far too well himself; the look of a plan gone awry.

"No, I can't wait for that," his cheeks were pale again as blood drained out of them, wisps of blond hair sticking to his forehead on a new sheen of cold sweat.

Anders gripped Feynriel's shoulders to still him. Nearly five years in Tevinter could change a boy beyond recognition, and truth was, Anders did not know who this man was by sight. The boy he remembered did not stand up well to stress and had a tendency to panic.

There was nothing quite as unstable as a panicking mage.

"Don't worry. People don't die from banes - they hurt, but the weakness and the nausea goes away within hours -"

"It's been days," Feynriel interrupted him, taking Anders' hands off his shoulders to dig his fingers into Anders' biceps instead, his nails and something hard and round pushing into Anders' arm, his hazel eyes green and glassy and wild. What appeared to be bruising beneath his eyes from up close were the even colouring of sleeplessness, "his heart rate's getting slower. He's dying. You have to help me."

"I can't. Master is asleep and he has my control ring," the sight of it inexplicably made his chest ache. Remembrance, perhaps. Conditioning, others less sentimental might argue. "And how many times was your friend hit with bane?"

Something about this entire exchange was off. Surely soldier's bane had never killed anyone; the closest case he had seen, death would have come by blood loss, but the drug on its own would not have killed his patient.

"I don't know. Too much," Feynriel grabbed his arm and he seemed about to pull him out of the room, but the pain hit Anders first.

It lashed him like thorns through his veins, the same as deep, unthinkable memory, yet different. This was ice cold and unfeeling save for a taste of fear that flashed yellow on his eyelids.

Anders opened his eyes when it was over, flat on his back on the floor. It lasted far to long, there was blood in his mouth and he suspected, blood on the floor beneath his head. His healing magic flowed easily at least, and Anders spat out bile and blood into a nearby chamberpot.

"You stole the ring," Anders said, after rising out his mouth, failing to keep accusation out of his voice.

It was not his place. Even this apprentice had command over him.

"I didn't mean to do that, I'm sorry," Feynriel said from the corner of the room he backed himself into, holding the ring like it was dripping blight poison. "It seems to be controlled by mere thought."

"Best control yours, then." Anders made no move to snatch it from him, but he sounded colder, as if someone other than Saul putting him through such pain, not even meaning to, sapped his heart of sentiment. He signed, looking for that part of him that always put a patient first, "that's quite a risk you're taking."

Feynriel bit his lip some more and stared at the floor.

"Let's go see your friend before the whole house wakes up," Anders said, gesturing to the door. The urgency Feynriel exhibited appeared to have calmed over witnessing Anders thrashing on the floor.

Silence stretched until it was uncomfortably tight, neither of them familiar enough with one another to speak first. Finally, Feynriel swallowed and breathed deep, the ring held in a tight fist where it could not hurt anyone.

"He's not my friend. I'm not sure if he's yours, either," he looked up, guilt more than concern in his big hazel eyes. "It's Fenris."


	24. Nightmares

The best stories began at the beginning of the end.

One among the most quoted lines from Varric's Hard In Hightown and easily one of the best; it meant very little, sounded profound, and the dwarf never did ask for permission before the book went into print.

Fenris' story began, unconventionally, after the end. Like walking through a mirror and arriving on the other side and finding out he needed the air from whence he came, or diving into the water headlong to his certain death only to realize he could swim, just barely, enough to keep nose above the water. And without knowing which portal above expelled him, he was unable to find a direction, even if he had limbs to steer.

He dreamt he died in a back alley in Minrathous, near a slaver lord's villa. His mouth as dry as dust, the taste of corruption lining his throat, he fell from a great height and never landed; wind did not whistle by his ears, clouds did not fly past as he plummeted, and yet he knew this way was down.

Others in his place - if this was indeed a place - might have imagined themselves perfectly still, or conjured a surface to lie on, solid ground beneath their feet.

Fenris kept falling.

Out of hearing and not from a great distance, muffled voices came in and out of focus, as above water as he was below. Fenris fell into the docks in Kirkwall once, and the stink of fish followed him for days.  
 _  
"He's stable, but I've never seen it..." it drifted away again and Fenris strained to hear, "doesn't usually affect anyone like this."_

_"...dehydrated. Spoon down a mixture of watered-down elfroot potion and honey every hour so at least he won't starve..."_

_"Rejuvenation isn't doing anything..."_

_"His mind is intact. I know that much."_

_"Master will be awake soon."_

Don't go, Fenris tried to say, but he could not feel his lips and he could not move his limbs; he was not there, where one familiar voice spoke to another too far off for him to grasp their words.

Don't leave me here alone.

_"...you will stay?"_

_"Thank you, Mira."_

Mira.

The slaves, poor as they were, brought what they could. Leto brought his great sword. Some brought their bows, their short blades and their heirloom daggers, the very poor, their fists; Mira brought her crossbow he'd never seen her fire until it mattered and their world spun into madness, her twin blades curved, spinning like falling leaves. 

And through her words she brought enough dreams for every last slave in Tevinter.

Elves were treated the same way everywhere, she let them know in new stories and old. The Dalish had to hide, the city elves lived in alienages no better than the same one they had in Minrathous, and the few having saved enough to leave found themselves masters called banns, in the south. With the sun behind her and a seeming halo above her, sun glinting off the blades at her hip, she told them tale by tale; the only time the elves ever had a home, they did not come to it in peace.

Elves led hard lives everywhere in Thedas, but she had a lute, days spent on the road and no master aside from the ones she chose. Good friends to share good ale with, ale she'd earned telling stories in dactylic hexameter.

Leto had no idea what that meant, and he told her so. She touched him on the shoulder as though they had known each other for years, instead of all of five days, "I only did that for customers. You're not a customer, Leto. You're a friend. So you get your tales without the frills."

Her green eyes glittered with flecks of gold; the sun lived in her smile. When she crinkled her eyes and her nose, she was intoxicating. They were all her thralls. Behind the smile was a killer, he knew as he watched her teach the other slaves gathered how to use a dagger.

"Too many ribs," she pointed at a spot on one slave's back, while showing another to stab from the bottom up. "And if you try to slit his throat he'd spray blood everywhere. This is cleaner."

She was Orlesian one day, Marcher another, and she had stories from Rivain and Antiva and Nevarra, and she told him one day - like a secret - her blades were from the Dalish. Leto was half in love with her by the second day of knowing her, as people in history had fallen in love with visionaries, not frivolously or with short-lived passion. They'd never thought of fighting back before her. Running, maybe, but fighting was hopeless - a magister was more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a slave. Leto saved up every last copper to earn his freedom, spending his free hours doing what little work he could.

It seemed natural, this cycle of gold changing hands and freedom with it. The law of the land.

"We were all born free," she ruffled his hair when he told her of his plans to go. Sadness lined her jaw, as if his lack of understanding was tragic, "and we are fighting to create a sanctuary. A home."

Leto told her that they were born in captivity, each and every last one gathered here in this old warehouse, training for something big and explosive and irreversible. At least, for them. "We all belong to someone, even you."

At the sight of the setting sun she fidgeted and bid them all goodnight. Her magister doted on her enough that she was free to roam while he spent half his day teaching in the Circle, but at sun down she returned to him, as each of them returned to their chores. Even the unchained ones, the trusted ones; they were leashed by time.

Some of them sneaked out to be here, some of them were runaways and slept here in discarded filth. Most stretched out their time running errands. Escapees were branded and sent to the mines. It was far easier to bide their time, serve their time, than to tempt fate. 

"That doesn't matter, Leto. From the moment you were born you belong to only you. Other people can go ahead and claim otherwise, but that doesn't change the truth."

"Not even to my family?" Leto asked, after a moment's pause. A single seed of rebellion planted in between layered stones of subservience. Duty, they called it. Duty to his mother and his sister.

"Not even to them," Mira touched his hand, freely, without hesitation. Meeting his gaze and touching him as though the gesture was easy, as though people were truly able to do a thing such as this, to connect without fear. Leto thought it a kind of magic.

Her voice was smooth and light, as clean as fresh water from the aqueduct; when she spoke she did not turn his knuckles red and raw cold in the fetching. Instead she filled him with clarity, shaking him forcefully from a groggy half-dead sleep.

A not so distant memory overlaid atop of this one, casting one side of her face in shadow, changing the embroidered dress she wore to a slave's belted shift. Her eyes seemed larger, her mouth fuller without a smile pulling at the corners, her whole demeanor smaller.

Without malice her fingers fumbled over a trigger of a much bigger crossbow.

_"Did he wake at all?"_

_"I'm not blaming you, Mira."_

_"No. He's not dead. Something's keeping him in the Fade."_

The magisters taught them to avert their eyes, to never raise themselves so high as to look at their masters above their waists; and so in their idle moments the slaves began to safely dream awake the dreams of freedom.

Leto lived in segments, free time, serving time, some years for this magister and some years for another, time before his sister showed magic and time when they were still equals.

If he forgot the years he loved Varania, and only knew her as always above him, perhaps she would be easier to tolerate. Mira gave him a look as he related this, the way one looked at a petulant child.

"Let me tell you a story," she reached for her lute, hand stopping midway in indecision. Then she held his hand instead.

"An old man wakes in an empty, hopeless place, wearing clothes he does not recognize, and he stares down at his blood-covered hands. He does not remember how he comes to be there, and his mind is empty, save for words for things that holds no meaning to him.

"A spirit walks through the bloodied, torn up frame that once housed a door, and it asks him with a voice made of silver bells, what he wanted his second wish to be.

"I don't remember having made a wish, he says. Then he tries going back in time in his mind and realizes he remembers nothing.

"I wish to remember, he says finally. The spirit looks puzzled, but with a wave of its hand it bathes him in magic.

"Before the flash of remembrance and all the memories begins to mingle with one another to feed him his name, the spirit says to itself in a curious tone: Mortals are so strange. Your first wish was to forget."

She took her hand away, leaving him to stare blankly ahead, not having lived enough to understand. Leto wondered if she understood any of her own stories, being as young as he was.

"That's a terrible story," he winced as though he'd just insulted her, even if it was an old tale she had no hand in making. Then Leto asked, because it seemed important, "what happens to him, in the end?"

"It depends on the telling," she shrugged. "Sometimes the old man learns to live with his memories, sometimes he does not. Sometimes he asks to have his mind wiped clean again, and he repeats this cycle until he dies alone, sitting on the same bed."

"And which story is true?" Leto asked, knowing little of tales and bards.

"All of them," she said, and began another story for the newly gathered, full of elves armed to the teeth fighting magisters in a forest now fallen to ruin. He never did hear the ending to this one.

She sang it in what he assumed was dactylic hexameter, pale hands strumming idly on her lute.

Glory did not visit them from on high, and she had no words left with which to pen their tale in song. He wanted to believe - he believed - and much later, in the strange delirium brought on by an unforgiving Minrathous noon-time sun as slavers eyed him from a distance, judging his worth, he saw the truth of it. Hopeless rebellion. A whimper barely registered in Tevinter history, not even recorded. Their numbers, too small, the destruction they caused, negligible.

Glory was a selfish thing to desire. Selfish, and ultimately meaningless. 

If a spirit was to saunter into his oblivion, this sweet nothingness without pain or care to offered him a wish, he would tell them he wished for nothing.

The fade offered only pain. All tales hid that single moral, that mages and mundanes alike must never deal with spirits. But in the end the fight was between oneself, fought in moment to moment decisions folding into the whole of one's life.

In the void of his mind - Void, where souls wander after death, for Fenris knew just how close he was to death he could see shadows with clawed hands - demons resided, though none as obvious as pride or desire or even sloth. Insidious, sinuous remembrance haunted behind closed doors, things left in forgotten corners in disused cabinets and the backs of drawers; pretty, shiny heirlooms passed down through generations of segmented time, coated in venom.

Red silk balled up in his mouth, red silk binding his wrists, unenchanted, earthly things he could phase through with his hands. Danarius liked red. Purple on his robes to show his riches, but red for his silk sheets and red for his bed curtains, red for his Fenris beneath his dark armour.

Nothing made of fabric could hold Fenris down; what held him were sweet kisses and a curious scratching of beard against his neck, hands holding down his hips, gentle when unobserved.

So many nights with Danarius vulnerable in his arms and not a single second he spent thinking of stilling his beating heart.

The word "Master" meant many things to a favoured slave; lover of the beloved, teacher for his ignorance, temperance for rebellion. Fenris never needed the last of these, and he believed in the first with every last drop of blood pulsing behind his temples, every breath too short taken with moonlight framing his master's bare shoulders.

Master and slave. Mentor and student. Creator and creation. They were not quite two halves of a whole, but one entity enveloping another, dominance creating a mold, a home where a slave could belong.

Hawke laughed it off the one time Fenris spoke of it, and Fenris clammed up never to share too much of his past again. Perhaps Hawke never had a place where he felt that sense of belonging completely, perhaps others were able to carry homes with them like a turtle with its shell, enveloping their souls the way they soaked leather and let it wrap over limbs to make vambraces to fit.

It was a skill Danarius never allowed him to learn.

But he was empty and vulnerable only ten years ago, like a new-born babe, and Danarius wrapped himself around Fenris and Fenris grew into his grooves and his edges, lip-locked and fingers-locked and bodies fitting together like hand in glove, love poured over him soft as warm water until he tightened over his master, a second skin.

In the Void he had no hands, no eyes, no lungs. Tears came without breath, no sound to echo off the ritual chamber of his mind. He could not see, yet if there were eyes to open, then he was sure he would see the slanted stone floors and the slab from which he was born, in his first memory.

His friends, on a drunken night at the Hanged Man, spoke of their first kisses and their first trysts. Fenris ordered a bottle of cheap wine, watered it down with whiskey and drank it like ale.

Danarius was his first years, his first experiences, his first everything. 

Leto drank from the river of death in atonement, naive to think that forgetting meant a new life; Fenris scratched his own skin looking for the man beneath, across the continent for clues, any scrap of a thing to hint at what he had forgotten.

When the Maker desired to punish us he granted wishes.

Another possession of his past began as he felt a tingle and a fresh itch beneath newly branded skin. Fenris remembered this, faintly, though the memory was as blurry as Leto recalling his first words.

He watched, removed, as Danarius led him down the length of the Minrathous Forum. It was all new to Fenris. The colour of the sky, the texture of the stone beneath his feet, sun on his dark armour, how it burned, and the soft breeze in his hair were all new sensations, and he smiled, delighted, as anyone so newly young would have been.

Slaves, and he knew they were slaves because Danarius told him so, faced the space surrounded by the forum's pillars. Each one chained, gagged with dirty rags, faces and bodies swollen and bruised. From a distance they were spider-like, their ripped clothing black with filth stark against the pale stone pillars.

Leto knew these people. Fenris did not. The slaves' eyes widened as he passed, their muffled pleading cut short as he reached inside with raw skill, no finesse, the points of a ribcage cutting into his hand. Fenris ignored the pain, finding the organ slippery and beating so fast it might fail before he closed his hand with no more reverence than over the neck of a wine bottle, turning the bird-like flutter to pulp.

They moved down the line of slaves and their whines grew quieter until their eyes were hopeless glassy orbs and they only stared at him, blank and accusatory, gritting their teeth and holding in their last drops of tears to die in silence.

When he came to the last column, the roofless building's wide open space eerily silent and the stink of dead flesh and shit drove even the most dedicated spectator out into the empty, heated streets, his master bid him to stop.

Even with dirt and bruises covering her, Mira was still beautiful, green eyes like bright sun cutting through a forest canopy, defiant. Years hence, in Orlais, while on a hunt with Hawke for Wyverns, he would look up and wonder why this quality of light made him feel uneasy in the way no act nor words nor sight had ever done, or since.

His master took a vial of something from his belt and poured it over her forehead, a thick white glowing liquid ink that slowly dripped over her right cheek, her eye clamping shut as it stung and from her expression, burned. He gestured, inviting Fenris to mimic, "push it in."

When she growled behind her gag he ignored her, when she turned her head he held her still; when she began to scream his expression smoothed into apathy and he concentrated on letting the liquid sink in under her skin. 

"Enough," his master commanded, and Fenris retreated, the slave's screams having long gone silent.

One milky eye tinged with an unearthly blue stared up at him blankly; the rest of her sagged in her bonds.

"Master?"

Brutal and quick Danarius pressed his hand in the same place, overlapping a faintly glowing hand print. When fire ate into the edges and sealed the ink inside they turned into powdery white lines, overlaid with ugly burns spreading in a web. Through all this, she did not flinch, or make a sound.

"Pity," Danarius said. "Still, worth a try."

He nodded at Fenris, inviting him to follow.

Other slaves trailed behind their masters; Fenris walked beside his, holding his head high. His master kissed him beneath the tall arch of the forum, and this swell in his chest Fenris denied more so than the tingling electricity on his lips, magic feeding through his brands, a prickling on his scalp. There was only one word that could describe it, this feeling of wild elation.

No more.

Darkness comforted compared to the bright flashes, the days and years he lost in his branding coming back too fast. Other old friends executed quickly by his hand, for which he was grateful; some lingered overlong and he plucked them awake and dragged out the hours when it pleased his master. These deaths used to be a blur. A blade did not care to memorize each cut it made, and neither did Fenris.

He marched towards madness with one foot in front of the other; the only voice he recognized - but he know not which life - soft and halting, and it brought to mind tirades he blocked out as soon as they began. His features formed a sneer in annoyance.

_"...I know. Let me think about this."_

Another voice, younger and consonants clipped and his tone higher, words going by too quickly for Fenris to catch.

_"He'll have to know Fenris is here. Well, what do you expect me to do, leave him here? He won't last a week."_

They were so close Fenris felt hands pushing him towards consciousness, until his skin broke the surface of waking and he was trapped. His eyes would not open and his teeth stuck together, like a rusted padlock.

_"I miss you spewing your vitriol at me, Fenris."_

_"Go on, get up and yell a little."_

Pressure behind his neck, tipping him forward, something metallic and hard on his lower lip, sweetness running over his tongue. A hand rubbing his throat to help him swallow.

Someone had been doing this for him. _Every hour._ For how long?

Sound faded, dim light surrounding him turned to nothing, darker than black, and Fenris thought he might sink again so he clung to each fragment of sensation, cool fingers brushing his hair back, checking his temperature. Rough, small and fluttering, quickly alighting on his cheeks and his neck, then pushing him under again.

But they could not have been, for under was beneath the mattress and people could not go through things.

Fenris drowned regardless, dead weight on fresh water, sinking until all was black again.

There was blood on his hands - clawed gauntlets - and it was old blood, rusty and metallic smelling. He scraped at one gauntlet with the tips of another.

He was not alone.

This was the same old room, the same musty bed in Kirkwall, open ceiling above with familiar broken windows lining high walls, wind dancing through the backs of wardrobes disturbing dust and the books Hawke left here, turning their pages.

She did not come to him like a wish-granting spirit, flowing through a doorway, hiding mysteries.

Mira sat next to him companionably, her chin in her hands and her elbows resting on her knees, wearing the same tunic she wore on the night she dropped her crossbow.

He did not question their surroundings, though many a night he'd spent drinking alone on this bed, listening to the wind. Over six years he watched it fall apart one painting crashing to floor at a time until it was barely habitable and it moaned and creaked like a thing alive.

"Are you real?" He asked, not caring how ridiculous that sounded.

"I am real to you."

"I do not wish for us to speak in riddles," Fenris said.

"Then I am not," she grinned at him, mischievous the way she had been. "You're not the real Leto I know, either. Leto would - maybe - get up and dance if he was alone and there's empty floor."

They sat in silence for a time, listening to their fire crackle, the occasional pop nearly drowning out the wind.

"Am I dying?" Fenris asked, faintly smiling without thinking, staring at his toes. The same lyrium brands scarred them in dreams as in waking.

"Yes," she said.

"Oh." He replied, as if speaking of the weather or the number of bottles of wine in the cellar.

She tucked her hand in his. Her fingertips were smooth with old callouses from all her years of playing a lute. Even in memories, Mira was not a miser with her touch. Fenris slowed his breathing; if he flinched he might cut her with the sharp points of his gauntlet.

"You're not going to ask me if it's going to hurt?"

"I do not fear death," Fenris turned one hand and showed her his palm, white lines down to the tips; sometimes he fancied he heard them throbbing. "And I do not believe anything could hurt more than these."

"What kept you here, then?" Here. Kirkwall? Mira did not say this out of pity, he knew this, and yet he could not help but feel himself pitied.

In the world on the other side of his eyelids she lived, possessing far less, as if they traded places. She had forgotten more than he learned in all the years he was free. 

Fenris spent his time cultivating hate the way Danarius shaped him with backhanded love.

The shame took time to live down. Next came the years of forgetting, drowning in wine to sleep in peace at last and not dream of red sheets, and he woke before dawn to better prepare for the sun. When he dreamt of crimson, dreamt of confining silk and the touch of smooth fabric in his mouth, he ached and craved his old master's touch and he missed the all-consuming space he'd made for Fenris like a protective cocoon, stifling and tight, impossible to breathe within.

Sometimes he mistook the sunrise through his eyelids and its redness as the sheets and he clawed the sticky mess of his blanket, wishing he was someone else.

Hawke served as a kind of focus for his infatuation for a while as he learned to forget, but Hawke was never quite mature enough, he did not possess a particular air of confidence, and even his steps were unsteady and his speech too flighty. He did not live up to Fenris' expectations.

He felt he could fit alongside no one else, neither did he belong anywhere but in his master's bed and his master's side. He had hoped killing Danarius would change things, erase this shameful affection; but instead he felt empty, a fitted glove without a hand.

The parting was literal, like burning down one's home. He watched it burn and tasted ashes in his mouth, and the taste would not leave him.

He raised his head to Mira's sympathetic smile, keeping her distance now as if she knew Fenris craved distance the way Leto craved touch. And it came to him that she was dead, gone; the only Mira that remained lived within his waking dreams. 

The shame of loving someone who did him so much wrong would never fade, perhaps. Some nights he missed being bound, and a badge of ownership hanging on his neck, and the certainty that came from knowing exactly with whom he belonged.

And if it should never fade entirely, that his dreams were fitful once in a while, that his facade of calm crumbled from time to time, and the sight and sound of some things made his heart race, his broken parts mended with sheer will; they were still pieces of him.

"I don't want to die here," he said without conviction but without his constant anger, either, the plague that furrowed his brow.

"Then all you have to do is walk through that door," she was fading. Fenris saw the outline of fabric creasing beneath her and cracks in the wall through her skin.

Leto would have cried to leave her behind - he was one of the last to fall, fighting by her side, though it was more a slaughter than battle - and Fenris would have let guilt consume him on knowing who she was, all the sins stacked up against him as if they were his to atone. But his heart felt unbelievably light, as it had never been, and he thought he saw her smile when he at last turned to go.

His first real breath nearly choked him, sharp pins stabbing into his lungs, his throat far too dry as if the air was dust. This room smelled musty, unused, and filled with illness; a mixture of medicinal herbs and old books and sleep.

It smelled like Anders' clinic in Kirkwall. Fenris did not search for the reasons, why that made him feel at ease, a rare concoction of absolute safety and disgust at the same time; he fought the dryness in his eyes and opened them a crack.

Light, indistinguishable between dawn and dusk, cast the room in a soft violet. A few vague shapes draped over with grayish canvas were probably a table and some chairs, and he lain in the center of a bed with lavender sheets. His mind swam with old panic for a brief second, then stilled, knowing with firm knowledge that the witch was dead.

This was Hadriana's room.


	25. Uncertainty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. Glad that it's twice as long as the average chapter?
> 
> (And thanks for all the notes of encouragement over on tumblr. You're all awesome.)

Hawke couldn't say he wasn't expecting this, given their prior entanglement - the first words that came out of Anders' mouth weren't concerns or questions but a plea for help. Anders always wanted something, needed a task done or potion ingredients collected or people distracted, always pulling in anyone and everything into the chaos and the cause, never selfish enough to ask for something for himself.

Hawke expected to have words, and he was ready for them the moment Magister Priscus and his overly large retinue left his new front door. Accusations, perhaps, for surely Anders would find out within minutes of speaking to the rest of the household here that this was Danarius' villa; love, he hoped, since he figured traveling halfway across Thedas in roundabout trips killing slavers counted for something. Funny thing about expectations he learned over all these years, especially while dealing with Anders: the more he expected, the more Anders burdened him with disappointments.

Instead of the flaming row he waited for, rehearsing the back and forth shouting match in anxious preparation, Anders broke the news that Fenris was captured and drugged in Priscus' basement. That was awkward - Hawke couldn't exactly knock on a high ranking magister's door and demand the rightful return of his property. Priscus wasn't even aware that Fenris was there, and Hawke didn't know how to come up with excuses without Varric.

He was about at his wit's end on how to go about retrieving Fenris when Darin delivered him like a housewarming present, in a crate, holes on the top and the edges of it nailed and then wax sealed as if the warrior was an exotic animal.

"Do remember you have friends, Hawke." Darin kicked the box or at least made a show of pushing it with his foot, soft leather sandal not even scuffing the wax, and it did not move, sitting there as heavy as Fenris, dead weight. "The registry's on the way, so I registered him for you."

Hawke motioned for his new servants. It was far too new yet for him to admit to owning people, each one of his new slaves as silent as Orana had been in Kirkwall. Small wonder - Orana grew up here, and Danarius must have been very strict.

"That's awfully helpful," Hawke tried not to look too concerned as they opened the box to carry Fenris away a little more like a person and not at all like cargo, stretched out and not folded up the way he arrived.

Fenris had lost weight. His tight armour had room in the arms and his cheeks were sunken, his skin sallow with illness.

"It's one thing to have unregistered slaves in the fields, but in your house? No, no, no," Darin tutted as though Hawke was an ignorant child. "That won't do at all."

Hawke had Fenris settled in the third biggest room, a long abandoned suite with drop cloth over the furniture, dried flowers in the vases and so much light and calming pastel colours his mother would have approved. A fleeting thought warned him that he really should bar the windows and the door, just in case Fenris' first instinct was to kill his master no matter who that master happened to be. Despite their lukewarm friendship, he knew Fenris better than that. Hawke left the drapes wide open and the door slightly ajar. There was nothing quite as dangerous in this world than a trapped Fenris.

Weeks passed in relative peace and awkward silence, one friend comatose and the other ignoring him. Just as well; he had a feeling that if Fenris had the full use of his faculties he might just kill them both out of sheer rage of being owned again.

Garrett Hawke tightened the tarnished silver bracers of his new robes and considered the ominous crimson of his master suite. When he was told the fabrics were already red, he decided to keep the flimsy, gauzy drapes and replace the sheets - even a Fereldan dog lord had standards.

It seemed too easy. Last time he moved from a hovel to a palace he had to walk weeks through the deep roads, suffer a betrayal, nearly died, and accidentally unleashed an ancient evil that eventually brought down Kirkwall. He wondered what the hidden price was this time, and yet he could not help feeling like he deserved the luck. Enough bad luck had been stacked against him; it was about time he had life easy for a while.

Hawke flexed his left hand and two new rings shone glaring back at him burning afterimages of green and red. One was a newly crafted seal ring, two hawks and their entwined talons clasped in a square, the other a ring of ferryman. This he gave Anders not long before everything went south, got lost with him, delivered to Hawke's new accommodations along with all of Anders' old things with a note that said "for safe keeping" and no return address.

It radiated arcane power, and perhaps it was not wise at all to wear openly in the Imperium - probably illegal - but Darin had looked at it once and chuckled. Just a pretty bauble, stamped with the name of an Archon long dead.

It was very nearly an engagement ring, once. If Anders ever took it off Hawke might have thrown a tantrum, but he never did; no mage could put away something as powerful as that, even Justice was impressed.

Another bit of jewelry hung on a chain beneath his robes, feeling far heavier than possible for its size. If he lifted it up with his hand it became weightless; on his chest it pulsed along with his heartbeat and he had the uncanny feeling that it was a heart. A heart enchanted into a stone and set in a ring.

They did not speak to one another at all, in the first few busy days. Darin packed his schedule with visits and luncheons and guest lectures on the art of magic and tactics, sure that he wasn't teaching anything the senior mages, all veterans, didn't already know, and lamented openly of how tired he was but felt secretly gratified with all the respect they heaped his way.

Hawke smiled at their bright young elvhen faces. It was really none of his business who lived or died; the number of elvhen magisters was token at best, and kept to the lowest ranks. One or two more middle ranking magisters ruled by the grace of the Archon, enough to keep hopes up for the rest but not to wield any real power. Hawke was no political animal, but he'd seen enough fortune shifting of Kirkwall nobility to understand, if vaguely, how business worked. He'd been the underdog, after all. He'd been that symbol other people hung onto and a name people brought up in conversation, name-dropping Hawke as the Fereldan they could befriend, for some what they could become, a little sweetener against accusations of Maker-forbid discrimination against all things backwater mudpit dog country.

The senate thought they had Hawke figured out. But Hawke's luck was made, in the way any opportunists made their fortunes; he followed the path of least resistance.

What he came into by chance - or fate - he took without reservations. If the magisters barred him at the gates, he would have fought his way in. It was no fault of his that Tevinter did not require this of him. They requred him to teach easy lessons and give speeches, live in a city where he was highly regarded and put fear of the mage in Qunari, easy enough to live with. While he had the opportunity to turn this all down and live as a fugitive again, Hawke never did enjoy running. Anders might have idolized a Hawke that stormed the gates of Minrathous, single-handedly fought off the famous juggernauts, and rode in on the back of an elephant like some avenging spirit, but Hawke used up his reserves of foolhardy bravery getting here.

Avoidance was easier than confrontation any day of the week, even Tuesdays, especially when avoidance had become a habit. The need to talk hung in the air, oppressive and heavy as low hanging clouds before a summer storm, so real and tangible his head ached; but they were runners, Anders and him both, spending their lives ignoring their problems hoping it would go away or until the problems blew up - at times literally. It was simple for people like them to go around pretending problems didn't exist.

Flemeth was wrong. Hawke never leapt off any cliff, but he could count the number of times he was pushed; baited, lured, cajoled to stand at the edge, and bodily shoved.

He had stood at the precipice for so long already he never noticed the first few meandering steps on air downwards. Perhaps he could have lived in limbo, sheltered and unaware, Anders close by and safe in the honeycombed rooms of his lavish master suites, not quite his lover but at least - this he admitted rarely even to himself - he belonged to no one else.

The reminder that Anders wasn't always his, not for all three hundred and sixty days of the year, brought him out of the stasis, the calm of Tevinter life that only someone of his station could afford.

So the day he emerged from his chambers, dressed for another set of morning lessons and then a dull lunch with some more dull magisters, Hawke came face to face with a calm Saul sipping cold citrus tea in his atrium and found himself momentarily dazzled.

Not by Saul; even with morning sun in his silvery hair, delicately curved fingers caressing a cup, and gold embroidery to complement his green silk and dark skin, Hawke did not know him enough to be awed. Pretty people were in plentiful supply here, flesh on display everywhere in the city whenever he chose to look. Anders was sitting bare but for rope-work in a mockery of clothing in black and gold wasdistracting enough, but there was always more to Anders than his milky skin.

What caught Hawke's attention was the sheer depth of adoration in those eyes, a curve to Anders' lips and the sorrow plaguing his brow having eased into blissful peace, a dazzling, mesmerizing glow to his cheeks. Perhaps the light was playing tricks on his tired, still bleary vision, or perhaps -

Anders noticed him, his old friend and his new master, wearing resplendent robes and Tevinter jewelry. There were those storm clouds again, passing overhead so completely he could not find a silver lining. When Anders raised his eyes to look at him Hawke's brows creased by instinct, or practice, or just picking up mannerisms from watching other magisters frowning in disapproval whenever a slave dared looking up. Anders' jaw suddenly clenched so tight Hawke felt his own face freezing up, his shoulders winding up with tension.

"Good morning," Hawke remembered his manners even as he fantasized stonefisting the slaver lord out of his house. Probably illegal. "What are you doing here?"

Saul tilted an eyebrow, took another sip of his tea, and for all his pacifist calm there was just that hint of mischief in the lines appearing from the corners of his eyes even as he stroked Anders under the chin. "If you bothered to check his contract, you may have noticed that I'm entitled to five hours of his time every month. I sent along a message yesterday, regardless. Consider us waiting here for you to wake up," _Oh the cheeky bastard_ , Hawke's fingers heated with soft blue flames, "a courtesy."

As if Hawke wouldn't have ignored the stationary with Saul's name in elegant script and a dark green ribbon all tied up in a pretty coin knot. That might have been intentional; if he truly wanted Hawke to read it, he would have sent it unsigned.

Hawke had always allowed the servants to handle niceties for him in the past, but Saul was by rank lesser and greater. Imperial citizens were protected by law, so Hawke could not even declare a duel and throw down a bracer, though that hand moving into Anders' hair to bring a bloom of redness on his cheeks and his ears was tempting Hawke to do something fatally drastic.

His hand quenched the fire with a layer of frost when he noticed Anders frowning at him with that under-bite of his, lips slightly open in a permanent pout. And like he had been defeated before countless times, Hawke was defeated again, because he was being asked by a near naked man dressed in nothing but ropes and that tail-thing jutting out between his arse cheeks to not embarrass them both by breaking Tevinter Maker-forbidden rules.

"Then I thank you for your courtesy," Hawke said, tone teetering on the side of polite and purposeful steps firmly homicidal. He was thoroughly out-classed, but that didn't mean he couldn't at least act prideful. "I expect him back by lunch time."

"Good day, Magister Hawke," Saul dismissed him, flashing a serene business smile while Hawke had to cringe at the title. Anders visibly closed in on himself, leaning a hair closer to his old master, not looking back at Hawke as he crawled behind.

Saul walked like he owned the place and Anders followed him close and devoted like he was in love; both observations stung like paper cuts, and should have been as inconsequential, but watching Anders crawl on all fours made him want to crawl out of his own skin, all hard old bruises beneath, no healer's magic to kiss it all better.

A momentary impulse, a wish to trade places with Saul he quickly stomped underfoot; Hawke wouldn't know what to do with an Anders if he was given a leash to his collar. Which, he had been, and that explained all too well why he'd been unable to speak to the man at all. It had been easier to walk all over Kirkwall descending stairs two at a time, stepping over dead bodies and dodging the Coterie thugs, coating his boots in mud and worse, than it was to cross the hallway into Anders' room. On his way from the front door to his suites, Hawke detoured around the little garden apothecary the healer spent his free time restoring to its former glory.

He couldn't shake the feeling that he disturbed Anders' life somehow by being here, trying to save him, the people he befriended in Kirkwall strung along and set down in his wake like debris after a hurricane. Part of him resented Anders for daring to be happy, daring to fall in love with someone who did nothing to save him; the other resented himself for not staking his claim before someone else had a chance.

It took all his distracted discipline to not hurl an apprentice into the sea during training with his force magic. Even more will to not cut class early and rush over to Saul's villa to spy on them. In his mind he saw it too clearly, his one-time lover and long-time friend on a rack and Saul pounding into him and Anders so much louder in front of a crowd than he was in Hawke's bedroom, curtains drawn and candlelight hopefully making him look less scruffy than most Fereldans.

The more he thought about it the angrier he got. As much as Anders was enjoying himself in the Imperium, Hawke had been sleeping in caves along the Tevinter-Nevarra border eating dry ship's biscuits and jerky, gutting enough slavers to strain the underground economy.

At noon he hurried back, and by that time his anger was simmering off to a low-level rage, enough to set down his wine cup too hard and set his face in a scowl, not enough to raise his voice and speak too fast. Then he stopped dead in his tracks as though there was an elephant in his atrium when he rushed into Anders' room without knocking on the curtain that served as a door.

Mira was untying the harness one knot at a time, lines pulling on Anders' muscles and scratching along his skin, and he was whining quietly and rubbing at the fresh red marks left behind. Clamps and fine chains and dangling golden ornaments like those he'd seen in the fade, on desire demons, laid discarded on the floor before him, and Hawke realized that Anders was made to parade around like that, brushed and made-up and no veil over his face, walked through the streets like a pet.

Hawke couldn't imagine how humiliating it would have felt but he knew how he would have felt, and all the talk he meant to have with Anders boiled down to something he might have asked a young apprentice who bumped his knee, and not an old friend who got dragged through the streets of Minrathous on a tether. "Are you all right?"

Anders, bless his understanding soul - understanding Hawke, notably - replied with just enough tell-tale strain in his voice, "I'm fine."

He couldn't detect a hint of sarcasm from where he was standing and it didn't sound like a lie, and Anders was the most awful liar he'd ever met. The adoring looks Anders threw Saul's way and the little confession crept back into his head and Hawke believed it, for once not writing it off as Anders appeasing the people who had power over him, but his friend had chosen to remain here out of some misplaced affection for a slaver lord. If he was lying, Saul would have seen through it.

"You don't sound fine," Hawke pointed out despite all instinct to leave Anders alone. Mira was probably going to prepare a bath for him, to wash off the dust on the back of his hands and to remove that tail.

Oh good. He just reminded himself that there was a phallus lodged in Anders' arse, as if this conversation was not already awkward enough with Anders wearing a rope harness and Hawke standing there in his magister's robes, the end of his belt singed from using his magic in broad daylight in a crowd, still smelling of ozone and electricity and so much syrupy force magic.

"Is this the best time?" And it looked like Anders was about to say Hawke, in that exasperated way he had been saying it for three years, but his mouth was closed in a line and whatever he was about to say he swallowed.

Hawke ignored the incomplete sentence and what Anders' next word might have been, staring at the curve of Anders' arse and the dip and dimples in Anders' back and his clean-shaven chin while Anders was looking at the floor, and what he was thinking about now was so selfish his conscience would never have allowed him to act on it. But there was nothing selfish about wanting to get that talk over with, and clearing whatever misconceptions Anders had about Hawke signing his soul to the Imperium.

Hawke blurted, all in a breath, "there's some banquet in the evening Darin said I must attend but I'm free this afternoon."

Anders dared a glance up as though looking down was his habit and looking straight at Hawke was a capital offense, and in that single flash of his eyes Hawke caught something like hysteria, something like irony, and his mouth curled into something brittle and not at all like a smile.

"I guess I'm all yours, then," Anders tilted his chin, still on his hands and knees and somehow dignified, literally comfortable in his skin. "Mira, you can go. I can take care of the rest."

The girl who wouldn't or couldn't speak wearing a half-mask made a face like a concerned mother but she didn't linger while the master of the house was in the same room, probably because she was used to commands and following them. For a few days after their first meeting - Mira taking a quick bow and then joining the other slaves, not quite melting into the background - he nearly thought Anders stayed for of her the way he stayed for the refugees of darktown.

But it seemed Hawke's only competition for Anders' affection was Saul, and if he didn't work his twenty-nine and a half days the way Saul worked his five hours, then Anders would always be inside his house, looking outwards. Hawke fidgeted, feeling inexperienced and awkward; they'd seen each other naked before and did far more than just watch, but it was disturbing how well Anders handled his own nudity.

Anders was getting more naked by the second, pulling at the leather pads on his wrists and working the rest of the ties out of his collar. Beneath his robes, Hawke began to sweat like a sinner at the chant, silk sticking to his skin, smallclothes too tight and confining, and it took him a full minute after Mira left the room to break the silence.

"I thought you might want to talk," Hawke said, voice just a touch rough, swallowing as his mouth had gone dry in the interim, wiping the moisture off his hands on his robes. "Clear the air, all that."

"What about?" Anders raised his eyes, challenging him. "Have you decided that living free here isn't worth enslaving people? Are we leaving tomorrow?"

"No!" So he was still angry after all, and it only took one little push. Hawke spread his hands, encompassing the villa, the servants, all the new land he supposedly owned but hadn't seen, Anders, "right. You know I can't just leave. What do you think happens when I leave? I can't take all the slaves with me, and without me they'd belong to the government. They'll end up working to their last breath in the mines, sent out to the farms and chained to their beds at night 'til the day they die. I need to stay. At least until they buy their way out."

Those weren't exactly his reasons, they were Darin's reasons, laid out line by line until Hawke threw up his hands and said yes, since five years in Hawke's service was better than one year and then likely certain death, swept beneath boulders in the mines like bodies in darktown, or if the bonepit was any indication of a Tevinter mine, he would make up the balance of their price if the slaves couldn't come up with their manumission. If Hawke was capable of honesty when it came to self reflection, then he might admit that he would have stayed regardless; he would have treated everyone well, but a soft bed and warm meals and guaranteed safety was more than he could scrounge up anywhere else in Thedas.

He couldn't give Anders all these things if he wasn't here, with the juggernauts and armies of bloodmages between himself and the chantry, all of that protection wrapped around Anders.

Hawke did not remember a time before Anders became the reason for getting up in the morning. The only time he refused to get up at all he thought Anders had abandoned him, hitting his head on the bottom of a strange bed as he slowly woke from enchanted sleep. A nervousness invaded his stomach since, like actual butterflies, not the fluttery feeling people described when they were falling in love.

Gnawing worry was closer to it, and as he reduced the distance between Anders and himself it turned into a strange, sinking, heavy, guilt, as though he had no right to do this, no right to mount a rescue playing at being Anders' lover, since he clearly was not, and had given up the claim on him long ago. Then somewhere along the path - maybe even as late as the day he went up-river to take that boat to Minrathous alone - he decided that he did have the right just by virtue of how much work it took to get here.

The thought gave him enough courage to get this far anyway, and even if his friends - notably one lying not two rooms away out cold, overdosed on bane - disapproved, it was by an accident of birth that eventually led him here, and not through some nefarious thirst for power.

Hawke crossed the room, certain on unsteady legs, knees turning to jelly even as he knelt in front of Anders so neither of them had to look in any direction but across. If he was apologizing he might have placed his hands on Anders' shoulders and look down, but down was definitely inadvisable at the moment so he held Anders' gaze, mumbling something that wasn't an apology at all, "please don't be angry with me."

Which was reasonable if only he knew what Anders was angry about, or that he was angry at all, or at Hawke. Maybe Hawke was being an idiot again - likely - or committing some sort of crime by proxy with his very existence. Anders' shoulders were tense in his grip, and he missed the easy intimacy they had, the way Anders used to melt into the fur of Hawke's hood and the crook of his arm, the way Hawke would fall asleep and drool on Anders' feathers.

"I'm not angry at you," Anders said quietly, looking somewhere under his nose, somewhere in the middle of a well-trimmed beard, catching the little quiver in Hawke's lips that attempted apology much harder than his words. "This is just," he paused again, breath smelling of sweet mango nectar, cheeks colouring and unable to meet Hawke's eyes, body language telegraphing how he regretted his earlier outburst, "I stopped waiting for you. I thought you'd given up on me and -"

"I never gave up," and Hawke was right there, pushing himself lower so he could look up at Anders, close enough to share the same air and kiss him but that'd been a bad idea for so long he'd forgotten where to begin. He felt shaky as if taken by vertigo and his breathing so shallow he might faint, still he could not stop speaking, lest Anders had a chance to stop listening, "I spent months chasing down slavers hoping one of them could tell me where they took you. I hardly slept. I think I woke everyday with a hangover and in every nightmare there was you and those slavers and those cages and sometimes I dreamt you were dead and I think those were some of the better nightmares."

If that wasn't a lyrium vein poking out of the ground in the deep roads, with miles and miles of blue stone beneath leading down and down into unimaginable depths, he did not know what was, for every word he said there were ten he never could. Garrett Hawke was capable of mixing at parties and charming hightown, but Anders had him tongue-tied and dizzy like kissing the first boy all over again.

That shine of vulnerability was back in Anders' eyes, and Garrett hadn't seen it for so long, not since his gray feathers were replaced by raven black and Garrett started wearing wolf's fur over his shoulders. Hawke wanted to kiss him, slant his mouth over parted lips, watch his eyes glaze over again and take away the uncertainty, tell Anders what his words couldn't, but Anders was biting his lower lip, as if mulling his words over. Hawke wanted to give him time to think things through but it already took six months getting here, and he bit his tongue for patience.

Anders said something like _it's too late_ but he couldn't have, because "too late" was only ever true if Anders was dead, and his pulse was steady and his breath hitched like everything was broken but whatever was wrong, Hawke could fix it. Anything was repairable save the white paleness of death, stitches on papery skin, glassy tainted eyes milky and cursed.

Hawke planted a kiss on Anders' forehead , not the minefield that came from kissing lips, keeping to safe social territory, and wrapped his arms around Anders the way he imagined he would have if he did storm Minrathous' gates sitting atop an elephant. Tentative hands touched his sides and rested, eventually, on Hawke's lower back, Hawke pulling Anders' face closer into the crook of his neck, no wolf's fur, only a magister's high collar, but it was all he could offer.

"Everything will be all right," Hawke said into Anders' hairline, and he was so glad he made it in time to a rescue for once, so happy that everything hadn't already gone south by the time he arrived that he did not notice how Anders stopped breathing when he declared his intent. "And you'll never have to go out wearing this again. I'll not let him humiliate you like this again."

"Hawke?" Then Anders snapped his mouth shut like Hawke's name burned him, like he'd said the one thing he was never allowed to say, and that was more painful than all the burns on Hawke's arms and the one time he had his ankle caught in a slaver's trap in Nevarra, again, no healer.

Hawke cut him off, "that man is not going to parade you out there like this every month. It's not right." A look at Anders' face told him that there was unvoiced disagreement, as though walking a slave around like a pet was somehow the local custom and Hawke was ignorant for not seeing it. "I'm sure he has the authority to do that to every slave in the city, but not to you."

Anders belonged to him, and since this request did not pertain to taxes or his right to slam Saul's skull into the pavement, he was sure Darin could advise him on it, or get Anders out of his "tribute" entirely. He'd seen Anders in the harness before, covered in a veil in the market, seen him strapped to a rack in the bath house, but that was another time and out of his control; it was all his now, the estate, the title, the money, the man he'd spent so long chasing. He didn't need to share if he didn't want to.

An inner voice reminded him that these thoughts were exceedingly selfish, and for all the evidence, Anders was in love with his torturer. Hawke ignored it. He repeated the word "torturer" in his head and he wished Anders saw it that way, too.

"It's only once a month," Anders said into Hawke's embroidered collar, obviously intentionally light. "I wouldn't want you to get in trouble so soon after you get your title."

"I can't let you do that," he pulled back far enough to focus on each other, and saw the liquid fragility replaced by something harder and not easily penetrated, like water turning to ice. "Anders, please. I can't watch you punish yourself. I know you probably think you deserve that sort of treatment, but you don't."

Anders was doing that thing again, where he pursed his lips as if about to speak, to refute what Hawke said, but he wasn't able to.

"It's Garrett," maybe Magister Hawke was the thing that bothered him, maybe a name called whenever Anders wanted to ask things of him was easier. "Call me Garrett. Please."

There was an almost love, almost longing in Anders' eyes that Hawke wanted to believe as Anders breathed his name, "Garrett." The corners of his mouth drew up a bit, his pupils flared, and his arms pulled Hawke just a trifle closer. When he said it again the consonants clipped and rolled, and it sang of relief and coming home, "Garrett."

Hawke was doomed from the start, caught in amber, miniscule and unworthy compared to the whole of Anders, from the first flash of his smile to the way he marched up to the knight commander, all spirit and fury. Whenever Anders wanted something - a selfless man pulling Hawke into his whirlwind, his cause, selfishly - he'd call him Garrett. He leaned into all the syllables like he threatened to lean into Hawke's coat, and Garrett never said no.

It was too soon, but so what? The last time he was close enough to hear Anders' heartbeat he was robbed of him, that very night and nearly permanently, and Hawke could not resist this no matter how ill-advised it might have been. His friend was hurt, his friend had been treated badly and he only had some idea of how badly, and he had no idea how Hawke felt about him, which was not merely friendly at all.

More was the wonder how Anders never saw it, the way Hawke threw the world behind to follow him. He'd have to be willfully blind to not know.

When their lips touched, the first half second it was like kissing marble, cold stone, and Hawke should have been suspicious at how stone quickly turned into heated flesh, parting willingly as he cautiously pushed forward. He kissed the corner of Anders' mouth, chasing it to the side where it dimpled when he smiled, the dip in the line of his jaw hauntingly familiar. Stubble did not rasp against his thumb, only smooth, clean-shaven skin, and for a dreamy moment Hawke thought time had gone backwards instead and they met before things took their inevitable course. In Ferelden, crossing paths as young ones and convincing him to run away with the Hawkes, Carver making retching sounds when they walked holding hands; if only.

Anders used to kiss like his life depended on it, fingers in his hair and in control, passionate and heated and noisy like he didn't care about people watching. Now no one was watching and he let Hawke guide them both, his little gasps so quiet as to be maddening, like speech just out of hearing, begging interpretation. Hawke forced himself back, away, looking at the blush in Anders' cheeks and stroking his chin subconsciously like the way he'd seen Saul stroke his chin, thumbing across Anders' moist lower lip to watch him shiver.

He leaned back in, resting their foreheads together, breathing a little laboured, too close to focus on anything, even each other.

"Is this what you want, Garrett?" Anders asked, voice sultry dark, and Hawke recalled the needy little sounds he used to make and time stopped again.

Hawke wanted Anders in his bed, in his house, wanted to put a ring on Anders' finger and not a collar around his neck, wanted to sleep at nights with his head tucked into Anders' chest knowing no templar would come to steal everything away.

He'd been running since as far as he remembered, packing in the dead of night, walking in the dark too spooked to light a fire, his mother pregnant with the twins and soon they were all running, three mages and the people that loved them too much to part with them, living precariously on the edges of every small town.

Garrett was so tired of running that if the Tevinters had offered to set his feet in Imperial Concrete and leave him at the top of the Minrathous Circle tower rooms, he might have agreed.

 _Fucking yes_ , he said in unintelligible garble against pliant lips, soft delicate skin beneath an ear, carding his fingers through Anders' long hair, silky, reaching low enough to touch his collarbones, catching on Hawke's calloused knuckles and sticking to his clammy palms. He tasted of fresh water and incense, flowery sweet, barely a hint of salt; hair moist and dark beneath spun gold above, a little frizzy from the sun.

Every part of him seemed softer than memory, the jut of his hips less pronounced and his shoulder blades dull and his ribs didn't protrude like they used to, the muscles on his stomach not quite as sharply defined but he could still trace the edges, every dip and curve categorized long ago and still there. Hawke couldn't help touching every part of him, even the scent of him different, still a hint of elfroot in his fingernails but his neck no longer carried the musk of feathers.

Hawke found himself expertly de-robed; complicated belts and loops and knots tied by servants in the morning undone with little effort, pauldrons hitting the floor with a thud when he shrugged his shoulders, gasping in surprise as Anders swiped his tongue across a pebbling nipple, ready and wanting and straining against fabric since the sight of him first thing in the morning.

"Anders," he breathed, breaking up his name, throat too dry, tugging on blond hair trying to dislodge him, and he was no blushing virgin nor celibate enough to come undone at something as innocuous as having his nipples sucked on, but this was Anders, so he just might. Then Anders nipped him playfully, just the smallest scrape of teeth at the base of his neck, and hawke loosened his grip and bared his throat in surrender.

Then they were stumbling, pitching into a door frame and Hawke hissing as wood scraped against his back, Anders walking him backwards until his arse hit the edge of something soft and smooth and bouncy. Tevinter beds were high as shelves, with stairs on the sides and a mattress thick enough to bring to mind old fairy tales and princesses with delicate derrieres.

Hawke wasn't delicate, at least he hoped Anders wouldn't ever treat him that way, and he pushed up on the mattress with his elbows, wrapping his legs around Anders' narrow waist, ankles pushing into the curve of his back to bring him closer. He dared a peek earlier, before their conversation even began, and he was surprised as could be to find him warm and dry at the reddened tip, finest velvet against his palm, not leaving a trail of glistening precome on the floor.

Gripping the fabric and pulling ungracefully, dragging himself up the bed backwards, he pulled - more encouraged - Anders to crawl over him, knees on either sides of his head, and he did not see as felt the panic rising above him in the too-fast pulse he timed with his cheek against the inside of Anders' thigh.

"Garrett, are you sure," he said, questioning, and Hawke wrapped his rough hand around that tempting erection and tugged it closer to his mouth, pulling Anders to curve over him, thighs spread wide and calves squeezing Hawke's shoulders.

Garrett remembered the first time he had Anders' cock in his mouth, which was to say he remembered the first time he ever had a cock in his mouth; bitter, salty precome and musk in his hair at the base leaving the distinct aftertaste of man on his tongue, Anders moaning softly sweet and gasping sweeter, Hawke drinking in more than just release as he swallowed, drinking in all he could draw out of Anders. Now Anders tasted of freshness and powdered honey, like cream cakes at an Orlesian banquet, waiting for a noble to pluck him off the plate. His moans were louder, less restricted, less tight, but there was a part of Anders that Tevinter had scrubbed away with frequent baths and too many different scents and artificial sweetness, the rest of him shredded down to the core to make room.

That damned tail was still trailing behind him, long enough to brush along Hawke's thighs and his cock and tickle his stomach; not enough time or privacy for Anders to remove it. He stopped sucking on Anders long enough to ask, "do you want me to take this out?"

Hawke moved the tail off his chest, finding the fibre too rough and the pet-on-a-leash roleplay ridiculous, the tail itself getting in the way of his fingers wanting to touch places it was already touching. Wrapping the lot of it around his wrist he gave it a little tug up, but Anders tensing and calling out immediately hit him like a bolt of electricity, and he tugged on it again, harder, watched as Anders bowed back in an arch, his mouth a wide "O" and the delicious sounds coming out of him made Hawke wrap his mouth over him again, wanting to be a part of it.

He used his forearm on Anders' back to pull him closer, until his breathing was shallow on the edges of his lips. The tail was still wrapped around his wrist and each time he tugged on it he pushed Anders further into his mouth, and he'd never heard Anders so loud, so intoxicatingly, gloriously expressive. His own erection bounced on his stomach with their movements, his knees bent and his ankles braced against the mattress for leverage, his wants rising as Anders grew harder, and harder to take in his throat.

"Garrett," Anders stopped, frozen, and it was the note of absolute panic that made Hawke pause long enough to listen. His thighs shook a little, "I'm going to - I can't -"

Anders' hands were pushed so hard into the mattress above Hawke's head he could feel the dip in the bed, and Hawke was lightheaded as he reluctantly slipped off of Anders' cock, licking his lips. His vision hazily registered twin blooms of pink on Anders' cheeks and disheveled hair, sweat matting the ends to his neck, to his forehead, and breath coming in heavily, languorously slow.

"You've grown so pretty," Hawke mused off-handedly, not catching a wince as he was too busy looking at the rest of Anders, and he unwrapped most of the tail from his wrist and pushed down on shoulders he didn't remember being so wide until he could cross his ankles behind Anders again. He stroked a hand through the trail of hair leading down to his groin, golden and oiled, and belatedly realizing even that had been tamed, groomed. He laughed, self-conscious of his own dark, hairy chest, "all I got are more scars."

New scars formed on top of old scars from before he brought a healer everywhere, became old scars, scratches and scabs hastily bandaged with amateur poutices never healed properly. Anders was smiling down at him, eyes a little sad, and Hawke didn't know why, the only reason his mind conjured involved regrets that Anders wasn't there to heal them himself. Then he leaned over and kissed a particularly nasty one; arrow dipped in homemade magebane with too much lyrium mixed in, and even with Fenris' phasing abilities he couldn't remove the lingering poison, colouring the scar unnaturally pale blue, like a thick vein.

"You're gorgeous, Hawke. Always have been," and Hawke must have made a pleading moue with his mouth, because Anders draped himself down over him, chest to chest and the ring burning a hole between them, Anders' collar resting on his bones, mouth slanted over his and he wasn't sure where they were not touching but he wanted more.

Insistently he nudged Anders' back with his heels, hardness slicked with saliva sliding on the cleft of his arse, teasing the hole with that heat and smooth skin. He joked, as some moments required levity and he couldn't figure out why Anders looked on the point of tears, as though that rise and fall of his chest could become another kind of heaving altogether, "gorgeous enough to fuck?"

Anders' face went blank as if he couldn't believe what he just heard, and it took a second too long for him to laugh like he was laughing at Hawke's joke because he had to. Hawke was fully expecting him to say no when a soft chuckle turned into that old huff only Hawke brought out of this patient man, "yes, gorgeous enough to fuck."

Those furtive glances went completely beyond his notice, somewhere towards the center of Hawke's chest, and he might have noted it when Anders touched the ring with one hand and conjured grease in the palm of the other, if he wasn't too busy spreading his legs as far as they could go, stretching the tendons in his thighs until they ached.

"Yes, please," he begged, drawing his already parted legs up towards his chest, as Anders ran that thick head of his cock in heated circles and sliding but not going in with slick. He was so hard that the first inch went in too easily, in a quick slip and a quick burn, lodged firmly all in a second, smarting Hawke's face into a grimace as he held in a grunt of pain. "It's fine just give me a moment," he said, watching Anders' expression shift into concern.

He nodded when he was ready but Anders' thrusts were uncertain and mincing as though Hawke was delicate, and he was going to have none of that, so he pulled on the end of the tail still in his hand until Anders was bowed over him and Hawke could wrap his legs and his arms around him again, giving a hard tug or a soft tug on that plug inside him on every upstroke, hot stomach and a fine manicured treasure trail trapping his erection.

Their noises echoed off the walls and probably scandalized the help through the open windows, mostly Anders, uninhibited, and Hawke filled in the gaps with his own sounds, clawing a hole in the sheets with Anders hard in him stroking across a maddening spot with irregular, frenzied thrusts of his hips. It didn't surprise him how little it took, no hand on his cock to add to the fire, and the tingling that spread all under his skin wasn't just a metaphor but each thrust of Anders' hips sent sparks under his skin, and if it wasn't for that ring and the collar he'd have sworn it was magic.

Hawke cried out, back arching, hand in the middle of Anders' back pulling hard on the plug just to hear an answering gasp. As he clutched tight enough to leave marks and his legs felt numb from stretching and his cock twitched between them, Anders' stomach slid on him, pulling up on foreskin, cum slicking his perfectly oiled hair, he pulled Anders close enough for his ribs to feel strained from pressure, keeping his body flush against him as he jerked on that tail quick and hard, forcing more than just one of them to lose control.

There were tremors in Anders' limbs by the time Hawke let him go, and it couldn't have been more than seconds, Hawke still jumping, interested between them. When Anders moved again it was desperate, with Hawke tugging himself to distract from the too-tight discomfort of his hole, smiling elated through the low pitched moaning as Anders came, body going taut the moment Hawke finally pulled that plug loose and Anders started pumping his release uncontrollably inside of him.

He practically screamed, and Hawke might have been alarmed but he drove in harder, the muscles on his stomach flexing with the intensity of his climax. Hawke pushed up to kiss Anders' jaw, peppering kisses to shivers and licking sweat off his skin, tasting finally more like Anders and less like Tevinter slave, squeezing on Anders with his arse to watch pleasure flit across his eyes and his cheeks, basking in his glow.

When they parted Hawke was reluctant, and even though he knew Anders both wouldn't, and couldn't leave, the cold fear was still there hiding in the pit of his stomach, not quite like butterflies. He threw his leg over Anders, one arm going under his neck and the other over his side, wrapping around him like some sea creature, completely shameless in how possessive he might look.

Anders wrapped an arm around him, chin touching Hawke's forehead, his voice too sober for Hawke's liking. No one had the right to sound like that after great sex, "you can't be falling asleep. You have a banquet."

 _Fuck the banquet. I have what I need, the senate can go fuck themselves_ , he mumbled under his breath, so drowsy he wasn't sure if he said it out loud. The stickiness of the sheets and his skin and Anders' skin only now starting to feel uncomfortable, but he was too comfortable about Anders being in his arms to move, "it's hot."

"You need a bath. That takes time. And anyone trying to sleep like this would be hot," Anders said to him, all logic and no fun, awfully accommodating despite Hawke's unreasonable sleeping position with every limb touching him. "Especially in Minrathous."

Hawke hummed, belligerently squeezing him tighter just for a second, and he knew he was acting like a child. But this was somewhat familiar, Anders facing him on a bed, even if the last time there were clothes involved and - he still couldn't remember if his head was tucked into Anders' chest or Anders' tucked into his - templars, and slavers, and waking up cold and alone without his Anders.

"Don't go," he said, soft, pleading, and not at all a champion of Kirkwall, slayer of qunari. Just Garrett Hawke.

"I won't," Anders touched his hair, petting him, Hawke leaning into the touch like a cat.

As Hawke drifted off finally, not worried and not drunk, Anders whispered a confession into his ear, making Hawke's brows knit together. By the time he woke, sweaty and running short on time, alone but knowing Anders wasn't too far away, ring on his chest drumming out a soft, quiet heartbeat, he had forgotten that Anders said anything at all, beyond a promise, a certainty, that he would stay.


	26. An Unlikely Alliance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris recovers.

If there was anyone to tell, he would say the mornings in Kirkwall were watery. The kind with chill seeping just inside your bones, the tip of your nose freezing and your fingers and toes too cold no matter where they ended up under the covers. And in as much as it was annoying, it was only possible in freedom.

Tevinter was not cold enough for a watery morning. It was the kind of place to wake feeling too hot, the covers too restrictive, and waking up was easy. Rolling back up in the covers was no comfort.

While all immediate moments after waking were much the same for everyone, confusion of who he was, where he was, as one waking from a long dream, Fenris felt immediately at home surrounded by a sea of leavender. Then it was not so much confusion as panic, trying to move but no strength at all in his legs, pushing at the covers ineffectively, empty stomach dropping out with dread.

_She's dead. They're all dead. You killed them yourself._

Fenris repeated, voicelessly, a silent mantra against waking nightmares, unable to shake the feeling that the dream extended farther back. Kirkwall, Hawke, those alone drunken years trying to forget and he'd woken up exactly where he was supposed to be, after one of Hadriana's more harmful blood magic experiments.

When Anders came into the room and the bottle and spoon he carried clattered to the floor, the rage he expected to come gushing back wasn't. Relief hit first. If Anders was real and he was here then Fenris knew which world in his head was reality and which was nightmare and abhorrent memory.

And the rage might have won out over whatever relief he had regardless, seeing Anders was wearing a magister's robe, collar turned up high with fancy Tevinter embroidery, each stitch hand-knotted in the back by elves going blind, with slavers affording luxuries for themselves and not candles for slaves. Fenris felt weak, but he could still phase through to wrap his fingers around an open throat and rip out a windpipe. But a mage slave's collar hid half of Anders' neck also, unassuming grey patina and dull green stones not even polished enough to reflect his rising ire.

Like all ill people before him, as far back as the first dwarf poisoned by red lyrium, the first words croaked after a long bout of unconscious illness were never revelations or accusations or even incoherent rage. It was, inevitably, spoken in a wheeze with barely enough lubrication to be audible.

"water."

Anders brought him water. Then Anders brought him food so hot and liquid he had to blow on it and feed it to Fenris by the half spoonfuls, meat broth not thick enough to heap on a spoon, somehow making him inexplicably hungrier.

"Not yet," Anders said, when Fenris asked for something a bit more substantial, something that required chewing, as he had not lost any teeth over whatever this was. "You've been out for nearly two months - we can't just put food in your stomach and expect it to just take it."

Healer knew best. When Anders left the bowl, half-full, on a side table, Fenris picked it up impatiently, nearly dropping it, and swallowed down the now lukewarm contents, he immediately vomited up his water and the broth. There was not even enough acid mixed up in the stuff to hurt his mouth as it came back up.

When Anders returned he did not reprimand, only gave Fenris an understanding, pained smile, with warm cloths fetched quickly and his body clinically wiped down. His cheeks coloured when he realized this man changed his sheets and washed him as he grew thinner, and he was glad of his dusky skin then, how it hid a blush so well.

"Sorry. I made sure I was the only one cleaning you." Anders mumbled an apology, pulling the thin blanket over Fenris, then true to character he began to ramble, "I know you're a private person and you don't like people seeing you sick and -"

An unavoidable fact lingered in the room: it was Hadriana's room. And if there was a Hawke in Minrathous, Anders was still a slave and apparently sold into Danarius' old home, then there was only one conclusion one could come to, especially since the estate was in lock down for another four years and only one mage had the authority to claim it.

"Anders," there was no point in calling him mage when he was on a short leash, And he could not antagonize the one person who might just be on his side. "Why am I in Hadriana's old room?"

Anders made a familiar face. All the times - there were many - Hawke did or said anything particularly tactless, Anders made that face. It was one shot in the dark straight to the bullseye, anyway, his guess that Hawke took over Danarius' villa and made himself their master. Nothing really changed, only the location and the legally binding sheets of paper with his name writ too large in silver ink.

It would be just like Anders to save him that detail until he deemed Fenris strong enough. Coddling was no kindness, but Anders was the kind of healer who would avoid shock to his patients as though they were all his children; the mage once pale-faced and sweaty, low-mana fatigue ringing his eyes, told him that his wound was, "a little too close to the artery," when Fenris' foot was broken nearly clean off and dangling by a sliver of skin and muscle. _I'm only putting you under for the blood loss, don't worry._

Only Anders could heal something like that and leave a hairline of a scar.

"Do you want me to move you?" Anders deflected clumsily, avoiding the subject and latching onto a problem he could solve.

"Anders." Finally he looked up and met Fenris' eyes briefly, and he could picture it, how his eye sockets appeared sunken and his cheek bones sharp,and he wondered if elvhen skeletons were more or less macabre than a human's. "Don't lie to me to protect me. I'm not made of glass."

"You nearly died," there was a heaviness to those words, Fenris' lost weight in them, weeks turning into months of Anders insisting on caring for him by himself, weight resting squarely on his shoulders and the words seemingly squeezed out from his lungs as they collapsed slowly beneath, strung out on hope.

Fenris never had someone genuinely worried about him before, and if they did they had the courtesy of hiding it. This was not the kind of worry that came from a magister's possessiveness or feigned love. Logically he knew it was not all altruism - Fenris was the only person Anders knew from his past, other than Hawke, and a master was not quite a friend.

It had taken him years to see that. But unlike himself, Anders didn't have the advantage of growing up slave, watching how others were loved and discarded in turn, that they were as valued as vases and new paintings; an obsession perhaps, but every obsession had its ending.

"Any other room than this one would be preferable," he said out loud. It sounded less like a croak after Anders spooned a second bowl of broth into him.

He had to sleep another night in Hadriana's sheets, and his dreams were troubled with memories. And if that wasn't bad enough, he still couldn't walk properly so Anders had to carry him to the latrine.

Danarius' slaves, strangely familiar, weathered, older faces passed him by in the hall when Anders carried him outside. Anders must have spent time preparing, going so far as to send for new things; when they arrived in his new room, Fenris exhausted from being awake, nodding off against one clean-smelling feather pauldron, his bed was perfectly made up with deep blue sheets and all the dust cloths had been pulled off carved wooden furniture, the backs of the sitting area chairs carved like screens.

Tevinter. If a Kirkwall guardsman in full armour sat on one of those flimsy things it would probably collapse.

The walk across the villa took long enough that he aroused no suspicions closing his narrowed eyes from his inspection and pretending he had fallen asleep, keeping them closed well after Anders tucked him into the covers.

His toes tented the sheet near the end of the bed, the knobby shape of his knees could be traced off the fabric, and there was a hollow beneath his ribs. In the coming days he saw this frame filled out; Anders brought him porridge made with broth, then eventually thicker stews without fish, and filled the blanks in his memory with events and dry facts.

Yes, Hawke became a magister. No, he hadn't turned into some sort of blood ritual raising demon and he hadn't been doing strange lyrium experiments. Yes, he'd signed the contracts and effectively made both his friends his slaves. No, he hadn't been mistreating anyone.

"Don't worry," Anders told him, as if Hawke wasn't worrying simply because he was _Hawke._ "Hawke's the same as he's always been."

"Selfish, opportunistic, evasive," Fenris listed off with his fingers, lyrium stretching over his bones. "What am I even doing here?"

"Disappointed?" Anders pointed at Fenris' knee and waited until he saw a nod before touching it, gently bending and stretching his leg out again. It didn't hurt at all, just an unnatural twinge as it was done, and he realized that this was probably a ritual for him everyday when he was unconscious, to prevent his joints from locking up altogether.

Was he disappointed? Not at all. At himself, maybe, having vowed to watch the mage closely since the first day they met and yet still somehow falling for the smiles and the glib words, ignoring that there had always been a magister beneath that flamboyant red coat.

 _Are you?_ He wanted to ask; but he knew it was a question neither of them wanted to answer.

Everything fell into place except for how he ended up in Anders' care. There was the story of how a magister found him and delivered him to the villa, but something wasn't quite right. A whole chunk of time was missing. Anders was obviously protecting someone, but who would Anders consider important enough to protect? Hawke? Saul?

"I'm sorry," then Anders was apologizing again, moist towel brushing past a small scar on the back of Fenris' shoulder, having never healed properly from smashing shoulder blade first into the stone railing of a slaver lord's balcony.

Fenris had done worse than incapacitating people threatening Danarius' life, let alone someone who nearly killed him. With that enchanted life bond between the artifacts, Anders was simply defending himself.

 _Let the mage feel guilty about using his magic against me,_ Fenris thought, spiteful of how helpless he felt, and said nothing.

He pushed through Anders' mother hen attitude within days.

"Your legs need rest," Anders told him.

"My legs had far too much rest," Fenris snapped back, his voice back to its rich baritone even if there was less resonance behind it, for there was less Fenris behind it, skin and bones and just enough muscle to animate, the way he moved grotesque even with loose clothing hiding his joints.

He dragged the ghost of himself into the atrium with Anders' help, knees wobbling, and each time he nearly fell, Anders caught him by the waist without looking.

They took walks in the roundabout hallway, devoid of birdsong since Danarius had flown. When he died they would have cleared most of the villa, putting the labour slaves to work in the fields and every skilled slave to work making goods for the market. The pets starved, languished, and died with their master.

No song birds, no cats, and their colourful fish, silvery skin with orange patches that used to live in the large pond beneath the dragon fountain, had been cleaned out, the pond drained, covered.

They would have forced an entire household into mourning, their lives in suspension until the next mage took over the villa. It was how the senate perpetuated the myth that a magister was life to the slaves.

When Danarius died, a part of Fenris died with him, and he was never going to be sure if it was good to be utterly directionless, or to chase after a goal, however miserable the outcome. Freedom was a paradox to one never having tasted it before: the world spread out all around him and the end of every conceivable path was dark and veiled, so he stood in the same spot, year in, year out, venturing into the sun only when Hawke called him.

"Why is Hawke avoiding me?" He asked, transferring his weight from Anders to the thin trunk of a shade tree. It bent and shook, disconcertingly less stable than Anders.

"He isn't," Anders lied. "You fall asleep too early and he comes home too late."

This was probably the Anders he never met.

The Anders without Justice in his head, who used to be selfish, who had an achingly expert ability to lie when the subject prodded at his insides; Fenris had known from hearsay through Varric's stories and Isabela's fond reminiscence. Himself, he'd never heard Anders lie before - there were well-phrased misdirection and bad attempts at manipulation, but the only person who could possibly fall for them was Hawke.

They all had their blind spots.

The facts were pretty much laid out but the only person who could tell him why - for the love of the Maker or whatever deity Hawke believed in all these years - was absent and had a long history of avoidance. Garrett Hawke usually dealt with his problems by staying alive and away long enough for the problem to resolve itself, or until it became unavoidable. Right now Hawke probably tip-toed around the villa more cautious than one walking on egg shells, while he pondered the possibility of Fenris coming up behind him, hand out-stretched, lyrium ghost active, aiming for his heart.

Fenris knew the laws better and he was neither young nor irresponsible, so the possibility was none, but Hawke didn't know that.

There were two wooden great swords leaning up just inside his door when he woke the day after he took his first steps by himself, collapsing within five feet, yes, but nevertheless he did not lean on anyone. Fenris walked his way along the wall and found one of them heavy but not impossible to lift, and the other too heavy to even budge from where it stood.

Fenris wondered who was strong and silent on their feet enough to leave them there without his waking.

Hawke continued to be absent.

It was weeks before they saw each other, and Fenris was glad for the time spent recovering, despite his initial misgivings. He was tall for an elf and elves were willow-waisted and sapling-limbed like trees, and he'd gained some of his weight back by now, having just switched to the second sword with a heavier lead core.

He assumed he looked less ghastly than he was, though the rooms he was assigned were mercifully mirrorless, and his baths hot and milky with salts. Anders' idea, no doubt. Only he was capable of over-consideration.

The startled look on Hawke's face placed this meeting as an accident, and Fenris was glad for that too; there were roses in Hawke's cheeks and his magister's collar was turned up high, and if he couldn't sleep for the guilt of slave ownership, he wasn't showing it. Fenris expected the total lack of concern - if anyone watched Hawke more closely and knew him better than Fenris, he did not know them - but not quite the sound of his soft steps in cloth boots, nor the swish of silk in his robes.

Even before Hawke opened his mouth he sounded like a magister.

"Fenris. Good to see you up and about," Hawke said, casually sliding onto a stool beneath a shade tree. Dusk followed him, long shadows and sun in Fenris' eyes, sunset dyeing soft pink above them, and in an hour it would devour Minrathous into full dark. In the shade his bland smile blurred into blank insouciance.

There were enough instances in the past where Fenris had said nothing, quietly shooting disapproving looks but keeping his own mouth shut in the name of deferring to their leader. Those times were probably why Hawke thought he could get away with it now. Not this time.

"That's it? You expect me to just agree with all this?" Fenris pushed the tip of his wooden sword into the soft mud at the base of the tree, leaning its hilt on the bark.

He wasn't dumb enough to think that going up against Hawke was in any way a good idea - not when he was healthy and fighting everyday, and certainly not newly recovered from whatever poison it was that kept him bedridden and unconscious for months, with the implacable laws of Tevinter looming over his slave head.

Before he found out how much of an impact Hawke was going to have on his life, Fenris once asked him what his goals were, of his ambitions as a mage. Hawke had said that he only wanted to get by, to survive, and Fenris had retorted that he'd seen atrocities committed in the name of survival. It was true. Hawke had become a magister perhaps still with that intent - he wanted a place to lay his head without risk of a brand on his forehead.

His lack of malignant intentions did not make this any easier to swallow.

"I didn't mean for this to happen. Honest," Hawke smiled, or at least the corners of his mouth turned up, but Fenris couldn't see the hue of his dark eyes, shadowed as they were. "I thought you went back to Kirkwall. You told me yourself you wouldn't set foot in Tevinter, and I believed you. So I signed it under the impression that I would never chase you down."

Fenris sucked in a breath. In one phrase Hawke managed to flip the world around to make it seem like somehow not his fault at all. But whether or not he meant to take Fenris as a slave, he'd taken an entire household, a villa, Danarius' wine business, acres of orchards tended by his own slaves; and by the ring on his left hand, he took a seat in the senate as well.

Enslaving his friends was the least of his crimes.

"Is that your entire reasoning for this?" Fenris paused, arms spread out in a gesture taking in their surroundings. He looked for the right words to hammer into Hawke's head, but Magister looked good on him. Hawke was not some embittered, powerless mage with grooves and lines worn into his jaw from jealousy, from being ignored by his betters. "The Imperium is not the answer, Hawke. Magister is just another gilded cage."

"So is Champion," Hawke mumbled under his breath.

"Champions don't own slaves."

"They don't feel like slaves," Hawke held up his hands, palm out and placating as though he could block Fenris' glare. "They feel more like house-mates, actually. They live here, but I don't tell them to do anything. It's like I have a house full of Oranas. So quiet you don't even know they're there until you turn around."

"Hawke," he found himself sounding tired already, none of this was getting through anyway. "Having one Elvhen slave in your house in Kirkwall and having a house full of them in Tevinter are entirely different things."

"I didn't decide this on a whim, you know. Think about it: what would have happened to Orana if I didn't take her in? She never went out once - three years and she just spent all her time cleaning, and even though I paid her and gave her days off she never took them. Saved all her wages just in case I wanted them back." Hawke sighed, as if the warmth hadn't been good to him and he did not look more rested than he ever had in the years Fenris knew him, "Look. It's either me or the silver mines, and if you ask anyone here, they'd rather have me. At least I'm not about to sacrifice them for blood magic, and I'm not going to command you to do anything, either. As far as I'm concerned, you're still my friend."

 _You're not yet a blood mage at least, but I am no friend to a magister._ Fenris held those words back but not the next, "if you'd stayed out of Tevinter, those slaves would have walked free within five years."

"The ones that survive the mines, sure. Or hard-labour in the farms," Hawke said, indifferent to his anger. "Besides, Anders is here. I can't just leave him."

Fenris should have seen this coming, and he did see it coming. Out of a sense of loyalty, here he was.

He knew Hawke was this since the day they met. For coin he let murderers and slavers free and killed the occasional innocent, calling it business. They followed him because following was easier than leading, and if sometimes he made bad decisions, Fenris stuck around for the good ones, decisions like hunting slavers up and down Nevarra.

The Knight Commander gave him a title and he didn't turn it down, since it protected him and his friends; a magister offered him another one, and he couldn't turn it down either, for the same reasons.

One whose convictions rose and fell like the tide was easily swayed by an ocean of words.

"You were free, Hawke." Fenris said, drawling, lamenting over Hawke's shortsightedness that let him make this longterm mistake.

"You were. I was hunted," Hawke leaned forward, elbows on the garden table, caressing his bracers, tracing the curling reliefs with a fingertip. "I helped you kill your pursuers, but mine are everywhere, all right? They're called templars."

Silently, a slave moved through the atrium, lighting lanterns one by one while the sky started to bleed deep red. Hawke winced, one lantern brightened what he deemed too close to him, his neatly trimmed beard glossy and the gold in his collar and bracers silvery blue with diffused light.

Hawke might as well had come out and said it: Fenris was selfish to even question his right to freedom.

"What of Anders?"

Hawke quirked an eyebrow, his amused, surprised expression turning into one of curious alarm and just the beginning, a hint of paranoia. "What of him?"

Clear in his tone was _none of your damned business_ which Fenris was inclined to ignore. Something told him it wasn't the best of his ideas, and he had some pretty bad ones. Anything outside of successful vengeance had turned out rather badly of late.

Neither of them was any good at being "close" but Hawke had never before shut him out entirely. There was humour, often deflection, and another glass of Pavali or a new wine he'd hunt down that Fenris must try. If Hawke started telling him the intimacies of his and Anders' relationship to make him squirm, then Fenris would have been far less worried.

He wasn't interested in the particulars. "Why is he still wearing that collar?"

"It keeps Justice locked up," easy answer. It must have been the correct one then, or what he started to believe to be the truth.

"Are you sleeping with him?"

Fenris had heard them, during that first night when he slept just down the hall. Denial would have been an altogether different answer than deflection. If he lied - well then there was nothing left to say.

"That's private," Hawke stood up, looking annoyed by this line of interrogation, or any interrogation at all. "There's no such thing as a dinner bell here but the servants usually have food ready by sunset."

 _Slaves._ Fenris thought, _someone needs to remind you._ But he kept that bit to himself out of habit of fear, letting the words sour and rot like grapes on the vine.

His food that night was hearty and Fereldan like the rest of his meals since he'd been able to stomach solids, probably what a Fereldan healer considered recovery food, full of root vegetables and meat cooked to a mushy paste, tasteless, but at least not Tevinter and without that ubiquitous fish sauce they used on everything.

Though that taste of acid - throw up, gagging disgust - lingered and made it all, in a word, unpalatable.

When Anders came to check on him, as he did after every meal without fail, expecting Fenris to have overeaten and thrown up like a fish, or like a child, he knew what it was: an acidic question burning through his spine, his stomach, eating its way out.

"Do you love Hawke?" Fenris said, as Anders checked his pulse, pressed a cool hand against his forehead, pulling taut the skin of his cheeks and checked his pupils.

Anders' fingers stilled on his cheek, and in a tell-tale, painful heartbeat, reflexive, sympathizing recollection like corporeal claws around Fenris' heart, he looked away.

"Of course I do," he said.

There were different flavours of love, Varric would spin in his epic tales, but Fenris only knew the one kind. It was the only one he was allowed. He liked to think he knew better now.

Anders could probably tell him that there was a word for affection borne of being near another person, something akin to the feel of putting on a long familiar piece of fitted armour or the weight of a perfectly balanced two-handed sword. The fragile, quivering corner of Anders' mouth tried to smile. It was not this, for Hawke.

And for Fenris, this wasn't affection between them - not that he knew it if he saw it - but kinship, the gut feeling of having found another person that understood without words, and by nature he wanted to dig his toes in, let his roots grow and tangle beneath the soil.

Like looking into a mirror, he knew if he told his story again, put his heart in his hands and show Anders its colour, he would know how to fix it.

 _Of course I don't,_ Fenris heard, _but what choice do I have?_

There were actions for which Fenris was proficient, actions that he was proud of, and what he found himself familiar with was anathema to everything that was part and parcel of Anders. Fenris wasn't in the business of fixing things, and the wounds of people beyond the very surface were beyond his ability.

He'd always thought himself superior, better controlled, but he didn't know what to say to the bereaved and he did not remember a time before he was told he had to be strong. There were expectations, and none of them involved coddling. Coddling helped no one, gave false hope, changed nothing.

Echoes of those voices remain: Fenris would not be the person he was now if there was a hand to help him up when he was down.

When he pulled Anders into his arms it was an awkward, unpracticed gesture. He'd never given anyone a hug before, and he wasn't sure where to put his hands. They hovered awkwardly until Anders settled on his shoulder. He'd seen Anders do it and Fenris mimicked that now, patting him gently, combing through his hair with fingers that felt all at once clumsy.

Fenris did not know what kindness was like beyond the distant protectiveness of his friends, and neither did he know how to offer it. And to someone he used to hate - or in which his hatred rest, the true source of it out if his reach - this felt oddly right. Even that old vitriol was a wide net, with Danarius at its center and Anders caught somewhere near its edges; it had began to disintegrate not too long ago, and only just now the fraying edges of it receded from Anders, the rest leaving quickly with him falling apart in Fenris' arms.

Minrathous might never twist Hawke into any sort of evil that resembled Danarius, but Fenris knew by now, from knowing mages and seeing them beyond a label, that no one was born that way, and yet all were capable of becoming resigned to the way the Imperium operated.

Hawke was not yet Danarius, but Anders cried just as silently as any slave that came from this household.

His shoulders shook and he soaked a dark patch into Fenris' tunic, smooth woven black silk, one of Hawke's gifts. Water left marks on its weav, salt dried to a white dust and a permanent dull spot.

When he tried to go, Fenris stopped him, keeping him seated on the blazing sapphire of his bedspread, "stay."

Anders was wiping at his eyes but at the word he stopped, the hurt in them unguarded; it did not take blood magic to read that mind. Fenris added, without touching him, without even hinting at wanting anything from him, fingers gripping the mattress, "stay as long as you need to. if you leave looking like that Hawke will think I was bullying you."

There was an old law in Tevinter, and like most effective laws, never used. If a slave killed a master, the entire household would be condemned to the mines. Coal, stone, silver, gold, gems - there was always work for the innocent connected bystanders of a rebellion, even if that rebellion was one slave going berserk. No one lasted longer than a year in the mines. They huddled the dark, chained together to share body heat, covered in filth and breathing in stale air and dust, and they did not see the sun again.

Even hot-headed and angry, Leto avoided direct, one on one confrontation. Beyond the initial backlash, it would have just meant more stringent laws on the rest. The laws made each slave hostage to the next.

The sides of Fenris' knuckles turned white. In a magister's home, he was shackled, by obligation, by law, by moral responsibility imposed by a people with none.

He saw little of Anders after that night.

The herb garden in one corner of the villa, closer to his wing of rooms and far enough away from the master suites that Anders didn't have time to visit, had started to accumulate weeds again. Anders left a set of tools by a patch of elfroot as if he had not meant to leave it for even a day.

None of the slaves picked up the work. They probably thought it a hobby instead of a necessity.

The way he saw it, it was just a weight training exercise. Fenris pumped water from the fountain in he atrium and carried them one bucket in each hand, bringing too much to fill a watering can, and he rained on the elfroot and what he suspected to be spindleweed until the ground rejected the water and it pooled, forming puddles.

He had probably drowned the elfroot, having dumped enough water on it to cause a flood.

There were glimpses of blond hair, from time to time, moving ahead of him around the corner or ducking behind a pillar. It was likely to be Mira, Anders' shadow, the husk of Fenris' past - her own person but he could not help thinking of her that way - and he thought about running to catch up with her just to be sure, but if she knew who he was then she would have said something already, or stopped avoiding him.

He'd already accepted that the Mira he knew was dead.

Anders must have been watching him as well; his bowls were always bigger on days he trained harder. Fenris made sure a left a little; the one time he finished his stew down to the last drop his portions were doubled the next day.

It had been weeks, but not months, by the time his heavier training sword felt too light. Fenris couldn't tell you the names of the months and he never learned to keep track of time. Kirkwall kept time by season, by rain or snow, or a lack of both. Minrathous ran timelessly, eon-long cycles and ever present heat.

One day he woke and stared at the same light that came in through his window, day in, day out, and though, _I have to get out of here._

The next day he woke before dawn, trekked across the villa as the sky lightened overhead, the entire place eerily quiet without the pet birds. Fenris knocked on Hawke's door, in quick, impatient taps with his knuckles, and when he heard a mumble within but no one answering the door he tried again.

Other slaves scurried down the hall noisily, stopping just around the corner, probably terrified. The magisters that lived here before used to kill for less.

Fenris went on knocking a few more times, until Hawke, half-wrapped in a sheet and hair pointing in all directions, opened the door all bleary-eyed. He'd never been in Hawke's new room before, but Hawke probably didn't redecorate, and all Fenris caught was the splash of crimson and darker reds everywhere, pale skin and blond hair tangled up in a red bedspread. Danarius liked to get up early in the morning and unlike the other, lazier of his kind, never invested in heavy curtains to block out the light.

Hawke was yawning in his face, sweet-sour Tevinter wine breath filling up the space between them and rubbing his beard. Despite the show of tiredness, he looked well-rested.

"Good morning," Hawke leaned against the door frame, possessively placing himself in between the door and the bed. "Fenris. What do you need? I'm kind of busy here."

For a second it was almost like old times, Fenris walking the length of hightown to Hawke's mansion, meeting in the morning for one of Hawke's adventures, meeting at night to finish off a bottle of wine by the fireplace. But they were both free men then, of a harried, obligated sort, and now Hawke owned him and played it off as though Fenris was a house guest.

A house guest that probably just interrupted morning sex. Maybe he was angry, at that, but the slave mentality part of his brain supplied that Hawke owned Anders and he was free to do what he wanted with him.

Then he was mad at himself, rumbling the rest of the conversation looking down at his feet.

He arranged a meeting for later on, middle of that afternoon, leaving with apologies for waking him up too early. Hawke smiled a little at his embarrassment. No harm done. As if Fenris was impolite and needed forgiveness.

He trained until the afternoon, somehow turning straw dummies into straw with a wooden sword and a dull edge. He'd spent years being angry and knowing where the source of his anger was, with land and mountains and rivers and bounty hunters between him and the magisters, but it was easier to bear than Hawke on the other side of the villa and him not able to hurt a hair on his head without truly dire consequences.

He rephrased his morning thought: he had to get Anders out of here. But there was the life link to think about, and it was a difficult enchantment to break. Kill Hawke, and Anders would die with him. And Hawke, as misguided as he was, didn't deserve death.

The hour of their meeting came upon him without warning, just after wearing through seven dummies and starting on the eighth, his anger not dissipating any despite his physical exertions.

Hawke chose to wear red today - terrible choice for a negotiation, but no magister would think of negotiating with a slave. Aggressive colours were just as well.

"I had your armour cleaned," Hawke began their conversation by a gift, and he'd given enough clothes to Fenris, perhaps out of misplaced guilt. "And I had a sword made. I asked around but the man who brought you had no idea where your sword was."

Two slaves trailing him carried a sword between them, and it had too much filigree on the scabbard and a dazzling array of jewels on the hilt. Fenris lifted an eyebrow at that - far too impractical for a life on the run, but efficiently flashy if Hawke expected him to play bodyguard.

"That's," he paused, not the first time he'd been gifted with something he did not quite know what to do with, since Hawke was anything but _thoughtful._ Still, there was little else to say, "very thoughtful of you."

"None of that. People will talk," Hawke countered, smiling. "Now, what is so important that you had to wake me before dawn?"

Talking with Hawke without punching him was a skill only his closest friends had to learn, and on also learned to be as direct as possible. "I want to go back to Kirkwall."

They were standing near the atrium's fountain, filled again with water, but not life; there was a stone dragon rearing up to strike, and out of its mouth a stream spewed into the water below. It was loud enough that in the silence that followed he wondered if the noise drowned him out and he needed to repeat himself.

Then Hawke said, "are you sure? I could use your help around here."

"My help?" Fenris repeated incredulously.

"You know the Imperium best. I was hoping you'd stay," Hawke said, shrugging, and there was such earnestness in there that Fenris almost said yes - it was easy to say yes to Hawke, as he'd already learned first-hand. "I can't trust anyone. There's only you."

Pointedly he left the phrase hanging, omitting _and Anders_ , the effect as jarringly obvious as a templar's armour without a skirt and a sword of mercy.

His ears and the bottoms of his feet picked up footsteps Hawke probably didn't, and he wondered who would dare spy on the master of the house while possessing not a single day's experience in proper sneaking.

"I wouldn't even be here if I did not believe you needed rescuing," but maybe Hawke did look a little lost, staring at his artificial waterfall. Fenris studied his old acquaintance, if not the closest of friends, and thought it was at least worth bringing up once, "the offer still stands. If you need rescuing, that is."

Hawke laughed nervously, sounding unsure.

Then he gave his surroundings a once-over; gilded fountain, sculpted stone stools and garden table carved right out of a slab of something pale and translucent, greenery, warmth, a few slaves moving about in the shadows beneath an awning surrounding the atrium, carrying trays of fresh fruits for tonight's dinner. All of it was his.

"If I leave, then what? Next time you could be rescuing me from the brand. How far can a mage run, anyway?"

 _As far as Tevinter, where I cannot follow. I should not have followed to see what you have done._ He swallowed, and answered him, fighting the ease of company - old habits were hard to break - and the false promise of safety, "you know I can't stay."

"I know," it was a real sign of new found restraint, that Fenris did not turn to thrust a hand through Hawke's chest when Hawke patted him on his back. "I'll arrange a way out for you. You've run away once. They'll believe you've just run again if anyone asks."

"They will. And thank you," Fenris said, and for the first time since he woke here in this villa, he did not feel penned in.

Once he found his way back to the docks or on a ship, he could send word to Varric and figure out something for Anders.

"There's one thing I want to know," Hawke asked, too casual, turning to sit on the edge of the fountain. He looked up at Fenris, "what were you doing in Priscus' cellar?"

"I wasn't aware I was in Magister Priscus' cellar," Anders did say he found him there, but it didn't add up. Healers or sex slaves weren't allowed to just roam the grounds at will. "If you were Danarius, I would wager that he kidnapped me in the hopes of ransoming me back to you for political favors. Money's no concern to such a high ranking magister."

"You were kidnapped?" Hawke's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

It made him feel a shot of pride, despite how he was bested in the end, that Hawke thought him impossible to capture even while surrounded by blood mages in Minrathous. "As far as I am aware, yes."

"When," Hawke sputtered, changing his wording halfway, "where did this happen?"

"In the middke of the night. In an alley near the slave market."

Hawke pinched at his beard, pondering, "there was no ransom. You were simply delivered."

He did not want to dwell on defeat nor divulge more truths for Hawke, so he said, "curious."

"And what were you doing in an alleyway near the market," Hawke asked, ignoring Fenris' short answers clearly trying to stop him from prying. The old Hawke would have listened and changed the subject. The new Hawke had not been shot down enough and probably indulged too often, "you were out alone in the middle of the night?"

"I am rather too conspicuous to move about during the day."

"So what, you were hoping to free all the slaves from the market at night?" Hawke laughed in his face, and Fenris felt his cheeks redden. Out of all the ragtag members of their little group, Fenris seemed least likely to go vigilante. He was no Anders to run an underground railway, he knew that. It didn't mean it stung any less to hear how little he accomplished on his own.

"Aveline routed half the slavers in Kirkwall with my leads," Fenris said, before he realized he had no need to defend himself, and if Hawke thought he had a sudden bout of bravado, he needn't correct him.

But the words were already out of his mouth and Hawke was staring at him.

There was a new look in his eyes, like he didn't know Fenris at all. "Anders is the one that takes stupid risks, not you."

"No," and because it seemed Hawke was not about to let go of this line of questioning, "I was returning to my accommodations after failing to assassinate someone."

"Assassinate. Not 'kill,'" Hawke rolled L's over his lips, "must be important. Not a magister though. Don't look at me like that, Fenris. I'm not using blood magic but it's obvious you didn't try to kill a magister. If you did you'd be dead."

"I have been told it was a near miss."

"But you got away," Hawke finally let out a long breath, a sigh. "Just tell me, Fenris. I'm just going to annoy you until you do, anyway."

 _Venhedis._ "Your pet mage saved me from a grievous injury from his pet spirit. While I was attempting to end the life of his master. Then they let me go. Satisfied?"

"That wasn't what I was expecting," Hawke said, though the shock wasn't enough to knock him into the fountain. Pity. "You went to kill Saul. Wait. Were you trying to rescue Anders by yourself?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Fenris said, though if he had known just how much damage had been done to the mage, he might have chanced it. But he would not have done it alone. "Why would I risk my life to save your mage?"

"Good point. It's another thing he hasn't told me, though." Hawke straightened his arms, and he placed them on the edge of the fountain, head dangerously close to the falling stream, studying the frothy surface of the wqter. "Will you finish the job?"

"What?" Fenris turned, startled, understanding dawning.

"Finish him off. If Justice was what stopped you last time, there's not much keeping you from killing him now. Saul probably has bodyguards, but," he shrugged. "No mages. Nothing you can't handle."

"Why do you want him dead, Hawke?"

He'd killed for Hawke before, and his death count probably numbered in the hundreds by now, and he'd never said no to a slaver-hunt the way he had nearly refused a wyvern hunt in Orlais. Slavers chose what they did. They deserved to die.

Justice did not think so, but that alone was not enough to give him pause.

"Anders has to pay him tribute. He ropes him up and put him on a leash and drag him through town for a few hours," he didn't look angry, just sad. Perhaps he knew then - no, of course he knew, which was why he said Fenris was the only person he trusted - that Anders didn't quite belong to him, no matter how much he claimed to love Hawke. "I tried to negotiate an exemption, but -"

"It's the cost of doing business in Tevinter," Fenris finished for him.

"Taking a man's lover from him doing Makers knows what for five whole hours, dragging him back through the door half naked, and I'm supposed to just be fine with it. I can shelter him for twenty-nine days out of thirty, but once a month he has to be exposed to that." Hawke turned then, his smile forced and wistful, "is that reason enough to want someone dead? I don't know. It bothers me."

"He's just one slave," Fenris reminded him, as Hawke needed reminding. Two slaves still stood just out of earshot, since no one commanded them to put the sword down anywhere.

"I see where you're coming from, Fenris. I really do," and he'd used that opening line before, and Fenris was with him. He used it on the Arishok - it did not go over well. "But I just want to live in a house with the man I love without fear of templars kicking down the door. And without whoring him out every month - is that too much to ask?"

"You can take him to Rivain."

Hawke looked at him, mouth drawn, jaw tight and lips pulled thin. Despite the lack of bags beneath his eyes, he'd been making that expression frequently, the lines on the side of his nose appearing deeper than they were mere months ago.

"I'm not going to order you to do anything, but you obviously have your reasons, and I just gave you mine."

Fenris hadn't thought about Saul since he woke from the long sleep. That driving necessity, the underlying vengeful desire was gone, he'd spent the first few days in bed staring at the ceiling trying to find it. He couldn't even remember why he wanted Saul dead so badly at the time, enough to risk crawling through the back streets by himself.

There were also gaps in his knowledge Hawke could do nothing to fill, and if Anders purposefully hid it from him then he could not think of a reason why the mage would change his mind now. With all of Leto's memories back and merging with his, forming a coherent, nearly comprehensible history, there were details that still eluded him, just out of his grasp, and Fenris had that yearning in him to know.

Saul knew exactly how to bargain with Fenris to get what he wanted, way back then. Saul knew something he didn't.

Perhaps what part Saul had played in shaping Fenris' past would condemn him, or it might just be another script of tragedy, decisions Leto'd made without thinking about consequences, not caring enough to find out just how much chaos he wreaked in the lives of others.

He found himself saying, flat, "get me on a ship out of the city and your slaver will be dead on the same night."

They shook hands on it - an odd gesture for Fenris, but he'd been friends with a Fereldan long enough to know Hawke would follow through. Now that he was a magister, the idea of keeping his word must have been drilled into him by now. He would fulfill his end of the bargain.

If Varric hadn't contacted Hawke by now, then he was either, the first, stonewalled by the senate - likely. The second, learned not to trust Hawke, though his position as best friend could render him blind to Hawke's faults. Or lastly, his messages could have all been ignored. The latter was most likely, but to tarry on that suspicion would not help Fenris' situation at all.

The day was set eleven days after they shook hands, and despite not having kept time before, fenris marked it off on one special dummy in the yard, one notch at the base of its post everyday. Hawke avoided him less; sent slaves to his chambers at dinner time when he was not forced to socialize with magisters, preferring the company of an old friend as long as said old friend wasn't also visiting with his Anders.

Fenris asked, once, over a bowl of prawn soup that smelled far too much of fish broth, where Hawke had been hiding his pet mage. Hawke gave him one short answer, "he's safe," and ended the conversation.

If he found Anders chained by the collar to Hawke's bed, Fenris would not have been surprised at all.

Whatever Hawke was doing to Anders, Fenris' own days were uneventful to the point of boredom, hours of training punctuated by an abundance of food at meal times. Soon he found the new steel sword effortless to swing single-handed.

Dinner with Hawke the last night was free-flowing with wine. He only had one glass himself, the slaves around them bearing witness that nothing was said out of the ordinary.

On his way back to his chambers Fenris marked off the eleventh notch and bid the dummy goodbye.

It was winter still, days short and nights long, dry, and the weather predictable. Most of his new clothes were already packed away, some never worn, and he pulled on the old leather leggings, closed the clasps over a stained tunic and buckled the breastplate under his arms. His gauntlets he left on a side table, his packs just next to it, with his sword in its too flashy scabbard leaning up against them.

Fenris rehearsed the route again: grab the gauntlets, packs over a shoulder, sword on his back, then a hop over the window, over the open training yard, up a ladder next to the tool shed by Anders' herb garden, across the roof and a short jump to a few hand holds on the wall, his bare feet making no sound.

He'd slept restlessly since waking famished, every time he closed his eyes afraid that this would be the time he never opened them again. But he needed rest after scything up straw in the training yard.

He realized he had been asleep as one blink and the next moved the moon up by inches, his curtains billowing softly with a pleasant night breeze. There was a sticky feeling between his skin and his armour, sweat from sleeping dressed, and he was a little cold. It would dissipate once he started moving.

But when he reached for his gauntlets a sense of motion at the corner of his perception - and it was wide, so wide he could pick up ripples in the fade - made him reach for his sword instead, and in the same instance swinging it in a wide arc and hitting something metallic that rang through his wrists and his elbows all the way up to his shoulders. It was full dark but his ears twitched, then he winced at the crash as the armoured person he struck at flew across the room and hit an empty wardrobe.

Fenris concentrated, let his hand glow at his side so as not to blind himself.

Any other time and he would have struck again, a deathblow with his sword before his opponent had a chance to get his bearings, but the last strike left a tremour in his muscles, tingle between his teeth.

The pale blue glow from his hand outlined the tiles on the floor, a small knife, edge wicked sharp and handle completely unadorned. And there, pressed back tight to the wardrobe, eyes wide and his mouth slightly open, taking shallow, silent breaths, Anders.

Fenris glanced at the knife and kicked it aside.

"Did you come here to kill me?" The metal collar did not glow with lyrium, but it wasn't even scratched. Fenris was well familiar with the enchantment, having worn something like it himself, marching in a parade next to a magister that held his leash.

Anders didn't answer him, just stared blank to the side, avoiding his eyes. He looked a ghost in the dark, seemingly smaller since the last Fenris saw of him, weeks ago now.

"Anders. Look at me," and his hand was still providing all the light they needed as he grasped Anders by the chin and turned him. When he spoke again he caught that he'd heard these words, and he wasn't mimicking the lost, fearful feeling behind it, "you nearly died."

He wasn't sure if he should have felt insulted or laugh at the mage's pathetic attempt, thinking he could try to kill Fenris with a blade three inches long. Worse was the realization: slaves weren't given weapons, and this particular knife was probably stolen, all he had. The whole endeavor was hopeless, even more so than himself facing Danarius years and years ago when he was first freed, for Fenris was a weapon all on his own, but a collared mage was as helpless as a kitten.

And Anders, for his part, looked frightened but not as much as anyone that only just narrowly escaped death.

"No," a whisper. "Don't go," he said, his hand clammy and cold and suddenly on top of Fenris', putting out half their light. "Stay here with me. I don't want to be alone."

Fear made up most of those words, but it was an ambiguous plea, real enough that Fenris almost believed him. If he hadn't already heard Anders lying already too often during the time he cared for Fenris, he would have.

Knowing himself the way he did, and knowing Anders the same way, it was easy to put two and two together. Fenris found himself touching Anders' chin, stubble having grown back just long enough to rasp across the pad of his thumb, and he knew it was what Hawke liked, grooming Anders out of what the Imperium considered beautiful into what he considered acceptable.

"Do you truly mean that?" Fenris asked, knowing the answer already but he wanted Anders to hear it, to hear it thick in the air around them. The knife he'd kicked to a corner threw a sharp line of brightness across Anders' cheek, over one eye.

It was obvious the knife was a threat, or worse, he was trying to use his own life as some sort of collateral. And it would have worked too if Fenris hadn't mistook him for an intruder or an assassin, nearly killing him in one blow.

The change was not gradual but sudden, when it came, the shifting uncertainty in Anders' eyes becoming determination in a split second, then Anders was upon him, hand on Fenris' shoulder, then the heat on the inside of his elbows on Fenris' neck, closer, but not threatening, soft like flowing water until he'd slipped one thigh between his legs and both arms around his neck and his mouth slanted over Fenris', nothing awkward about how he moved at all, fluid and natural except for Fenris frozen in his embrace.

There were fleeting moments caught behind sheds and pillars and in alleyways before Danarius, and only Danarius after, then no one since Seheron, passions spent rutting in heat when he was fresh learning about freedom. He'd heard Isabela lament about a dry spell but he'd never experience it himself, like a man gone without water for so long he no longer thirsted.

And like a man gone so long without food it took only a single bite to feel ravenous again, skin alight with electricity but it was only his hair standing on end from Anders' touch, ears tingling with blood rushing into them, into his cheeks, into his lips kiss swollen.

He did not know when he became trapped but trapped he was, lying on the floor with Anders a hot mess above him, Anders' thigh rubbing at him through tight leggings and Anders' finger undoing the toggles on his tunic and pulling them down as he grinded against Fenris, his touch like magic even without magic, setting them both alight with sparks.

It was easy to lose oneself in the dark, easier still when Anders' tongue was in his mouth and he wasn't demanding as he was giving, kissed like his life belonged to Fenris, had always been, kissed the way Fenris himself had, clad in a saarebas collar and deluded into thinking it was for love -

And since when had Anders loved him?

He'd never been so aware of his own delusions as that moment, with Anders sighing against his lips, his own hands somehow having made their way inside the loose tunic Anders was wearing. There was a heart beating steady beneath his palm, a dead calm beacon amidst all this heated fumbling, and he let his hand glow, light diffusing through fabric, let his fingertips sink beneath that smooth, warm skin.

Above that heart Anders had been shocked stock still, and they were still touching somehow, lips quivering against one another. And slowly, as though the air was solid and he had to push against it to move away, Fenris tipped back until he could focus, until the pinpoints of Anders' eyes stared back at him, mouth hanging open with quick shallow breaths. He wondered what this felt like, to be invaded this way; Anders' heart was fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird against his fingers.

He stroked at it, the way he'd stroke Anders' chin earlier, let a smile curl in at the corners. And somehow against the pain and the fear Anders' mirrored it, a cunning likeness of a dead magister's smile.

"And if I was to say I don't want you? Mage." Fenris said, lips cooling. And what he said then was malevolence he cultivated the way Anders tended his garden until it was abandoned, "that I hate you? That this," he let his fingers tighten a fraction, watched tears collect at the corners of Anders' eyes, "this is what I want?"

"Then hurt me," Anders said, not a second's hesitation, lips going dark - blue - cheeks going pale and begging not for him to stop but to continue. "Stay. And I'll come to you every night. I'll let you hurt me. I'll cry and beg if you want," and his words were no more than broken syllables between gasps now but they were still painfully clear. "Just don't leave."

Fenris let go then, unable to keep up the facade any longer. Though he'd nearly fantasized about doing this before, might have even said yes if this offer was given before Hadriana's heart stopped in his hand, before Danarius, when he wanted - needed - to feel power over a mage.

He was no longer the person who could find enjoyment in such things.

The value of a given life was beyond mage or not, right or wrong, and choices on either side were limited. He'd seen it in his sisters' eyes, green like the ocean on the edge of Seheron, untainted. She'd never thought there were choices, just paths that opened up in front of her and it was either take them or die, and she took them to delay the inevitable.

There was a magister in the house and he was still alive, too, and his sister was not. Fenris had regrets. But his hands were now on Anders' shoulders and he would not become one of them.

"This thing you're asking of me. That you're really asking of me. I cannot grant it," and maybe he never could, because unlike him Anders knew all along exactly what freedom was, and the price in silver and gold and blood someone else had to pay for it. "Believe me when I say that I understand. But despite what you're thinking, what he's told you and what he chose for you to see, he deserves to die."

"I don't -" _know what you're talking about._ The denial. Fenris could hear it beginning and he didn't want to hear it tonight. No more lies.

"Your master," there was a tremour of excitement, of revelations in his bones, and these were scenes he already remembered that didn't slot together like pieces of a puzzle until now. Varania and her scowl in the garden, giving him one last chance to change his mind. Varania living even though Fenris had killed their master. Varania in the shadows, watching him when he no longer recognized her. In the heart of it, the dead calm center of a storm, "Saul. He sold me to Danarius. He sold out the resistance."

Saul probably kept tabs on her too, over the years; there was no escaping him, freed or enslaved. _I had no choice, Leto._

Anders blanched, not wanting to believe, and Fenris didn't want to believe it either, that Varania betrayed him twice. That was the only explanation, the only reason she still breathed after he was strung up on a pole and left to die, flies landing on his ears, his wounds rotting in the sun.

"Mira is the way she is because of him," Fenris said, not quite a lie. "I remember now."

It might have kinder then if he'd crushed Anders' heart with his hands than with his words, watching his tears flow over his cheeks as though everything he believed in was false. Ideals, love, hope crashing down. Fenris didn't want to be here to watch the light go out but there it was.

He had to go if he wanted to make it to Saul's villa and be gone before dawn.

Anders was beyond fighting now, though he wondered if Anders remembered the verbal sparring with him, the easy banter with Varric, if he ever spent time thinking about having friends and laughing without worrying whether his laughter was pleasant to his master's ears.

"Don't do this," Anders pleaded, but it sounded mechanical and dead, pronounced the way he'd heard too many times elsewhere and best not thought about. "Don't kill him. Please."

And it wasn't entirely without affection, if only for someone he'd never thought of as a friend but circumstances had changed and so had they, that he stood behind Anders, covered his mouth with one hand firmly, in case he changed his mind and decided to alarm the household.

Fenris raised his fist, and before he struck, he gave Anders something that could be remembered as either a threat or a promise. "I will come back for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This should have been three chapters, but I couldn't find a good place to stop and by the time I was halfway through I knew I had to finish this arc before posting it.
> 
> [edit: ps, it's our one year [anniversary](http://foxghost.tumblr.com/post/48632094787/an-anniversary)!]


	27. Sword of Mercy

He'd always found it easiest to follow.

Reading the signs were second-nature to him, so ingrained and a part of him he could no longer recall his training. A short affirmative phrase, gesture, a curt nod and Fenris was there, no second guesses, no hesitation, no regrets.

The kind of death he granted was a primal thing, ancient and wild, like the wolves of his namesake, and the moment he closed his fingers over a heart was as sure as the first wolf closing its jaws over the first prey; he watched the life bleed out of their eyes and knew - none of those guilty, palpitating short breaths as he remembered their names, a wolf did not learn a prey's nae - that they deserved this one just reward.

Whomever commanded him to take this life had their reasons. So Fenris needed none.

He might have been called cruel, among other things, if he'd enjoyed it, but it wasn't ecstasy he took away from those moments, those short ritualistic seconds transiting from life to death; something far closer to the nerve was touched when he saw satisfaction reflected in milk-glass eyes, and bodies slumped to the ground with no visible wounds.

He wasn't a killer. He was a weapon fulfilling its purpose.

The first time he questioned it he ran, Danarius calling after him, cursing, anger and spite through coughing up blood; for the first time too, Fenris ignored the voice and the compulsion twitching in his joints. Seheron's dirt soiling his feet, the fragrant scent of spiced tea in his nose forever tainted by the iron rust of blood and he ran and ran. People all died the same way, even if outwardly the wounds were different; and the faces of the fog warriors overlapped with the blurry, vague recollections of past deaths, past victories. 

One could run away from a land as far as the other side of the continent and still always be running in the same spot. 

Thinking of it at all caused him to commit the unforgivable crime of panicking in the heat of battle, and so Fenris shoved it deep into the dusty corners of his mind: under a high bed with blood dripping down the headboard and red on the sheets.

The blood was Danarius', binding him, sticky like giant spider webbing, like melted sugar caramel; enticement on one side of each strand and the macabre on the other, both hot and burning, life blood and love in the same moment until he could no longer tell the difference. Hawke needed no blood ritual, only words; an easy smile bright with the sunshine of one too short-sighted to see storm clouds ahead. But how different was Hawke's _deal with him_ from Danarius' _kill him_?

How could any person not revel with glee in the wielding of him, a weapon like Fenris at their disposal? The power of life and death close at hand and called with a short command; Hawke had his own, of course, he could ground your skull into the stone tiles of hightown without lifting a finger, but he didn't have to. He had Varric's words and Fenris' sword and on those frequent occasions where he bit his tongue in cowardice, Anders gave him courage.

The walk from Danarius' - Hawke's - villa to Saul's smaller estate, edge of the market, edge of the government district property, was silent and the silence rang and the ringing jarred the doubt from his bones until it painted lines in blood, scented sweet powdered honey from Anders's kisses, pulsing in his cheeks.

It was certain then, too, a past life, walking in Leto's feet; as certain as an actor performing his part, reading out his script to an audience of one, his toes gripping the cracked stone that lined forgotten alleys, never stumbling.

Minrathous spilled out his fate for him, streams running through channels carved into stone, and he was only one droplet in the current, unable to change his course.

Bright and young, Varania had bought him short reprieves of freedom with her ways. He resented her for it, the way any young man might have, and the women, they were always sad, their large green eyes born with sorrow, born for tears. Fenris stalked between the open gate and remembered how Leto used to walk, used to laugh; how selfish he was that he did not see the gifts she gave him, only that it was not enough.

He might have known if he asked harder questions, later, and wondered what kind of a sister would make him want to trade his life for hers even if she was a mage.

The villa was deserted.

Last time he found himself here Fenris expected a small army of bodyguards; he knew Saul better now, from memory and memory of hearsay, knew the value he placed on his people's lives - in copper and silver and gold. He'd never risk the slaves he owned.

This time Fenris took the stone path from the back of the building to its front, a roundabout route and a well-swept path. In the night he did not hear a single soul stirring; even the birds in their cages were asleep, and if their master was awake and waiting the pets did not know how their live depends on him. And waiting, Fenris knew Saul would be, for he was not one to wait for death but to face it, with the aggravatingly sweet, trustworthy smile, waiting for his chance to turn the tide with words.

The slaver lord sat cross-legged on a ubiquitous Tevinter lectus, brazier lit, and on the floor in front of him, like a dividing line or a shield, was the sword Fenris left behind.

Mercy, it gleamed warm and welcoming, throwing off orange and yellow in a spray of small bright lights, flecks of gold to land on Saul's tunic and loose pants, still dressed the way a slave was dressed, only the fabric reflecting his class as an owner instead of the owned.

 _Once a slave, always a slave?_ Hawke asked him once, leaning back in one of his oversized armchairs in the Amell estate, wine glass at his lips and not caring at all if his words cut into scabbed over wounds as they both stared into the fire.

Without thinking he licked his lips. Honey. He blushed. The places Anders dug in his fingers burned and he thought he could hear him still, _don't do this._

"I thought you might like your sword back," Saul said, breaking the silence.

With his keen eyes he saw this time without judging, without that lens of Saul being in the wrong, end of this tale, and he was in the right, final and his motives unexamined. Fenris was tasked to study the other magisters when he was a bodyguard; when he was in Kirkwall, he watched their mages for signs of corruption, and he was nothing if not observant when he chose to look.

Saul's soft, smooth hands curled gently, naturally over his knees, his knuckles a little darker than the rest of him, hardly a wrinkle on his skin. There were callouses on the sides of his feet, discoloured from walking, and his arms were well-built, what one expected to see on a warrior, except he was without a single scar.

For all their hatred of the Qunari - propagandized caricatures of ox-men and monsters, as if physical prowess was worse than real fade demons - Tevinters bred slaves by number and traits like prized pets, just like Qunari children with their coded names. It was easy to figure out where these children belonged; naturally the taller, stronger ones were bred for physical labour, others had lines of magic going back generations, and some were bred for only beauty.

Then there were slaves like him, like Saul, captured in war, their fathers killed in the conflict in Seheron and the magisters set their huts on fire, driving the women and children out of their homes and into their half-empty war ships. They were unknowns; new blood for a new generation, exotic and dusky-skinned and _how refreshing to see new faces, the old delicate-boned elves were getting all so dull._

Leto was lucky he had a mother and a sister trying their best to shield him, and a master that wasn't interested in boys. And he wasn't a beautiful boy; he was all knees and elbows and too large eyes in his small bones, an awkward child having grown so fast in his teens he started bumping into door frames, developing an old-man way of walking all hunched over, and for a while Varania laughed at him and told him he haunted the villa like a shade.

 _Strong boy_ , they told him. His sister indulged him and gave him his first sword, from what little favors she managed to pull. Just showing her curves and Leto ungratefully called her a whore, regretting it immediately afterwards but too stubborn to take it back from a mage. Strong boy.

They all had their labels; somewhere along the path a magister had called Saul beautiful and it became the ultimate praise.

Leto flew, free without a purpose; Saul's sole purpose, for a time, was to feed the eyes of his captors, or so the rumours of him remained in the gossips heard among the slaves - always gossipping. Hair oiled back and arms lined with impecably taut muscles, Saul was still fulfilling the same purpose; and if you so much as glanced his way he smiled. 

Once a slave, always a slave. _You'll let him command you from the grave._

It seemed a lifetime ago that Saul said this to him, and it might as well had been, for the differences between Fenris then and Fenris now.

He remained in the doorway, nothing but darkness behind him, the last lamp slowly going out at the top of the stairs a ways down the hall. "I came to get some answers."

"And to think that I thought you'd come to kill me again."

"I could have," Fenris fingered the strap to his scabbard. There was an itch to it, a discomfort like a tooth about to come out, like a thing that did not belong; and the sword out of its scabbard, shiny as a mirror, joined his old one on the floor. Both of them were Hawke's gifts; neither he liked very much. "Whether or not you die depends on those answers."

"You want me to tell you what you want to hear?" A jest, then possibly he was nervous, but Saul was hard to read - that was his business.

"I want the truth," he remained behind his sword, an offering of temporary truce, perhaps. A show of one, at least. He had his hands.

"You'll have to be rather more specific than that," Saul spoke in a low rumble, not unlike his own way of speech.

The unspoken standards in Tevinter, of various classically beautiful things, everyone knew them and no one spoke of them. Gold on marble and coloured glass tasserae, low masculine voices and the perfect angle of an Elvhen nose.

"Who is Mira?" Fenris began by asking, suspicious, and hoped he was wrong.

"No one," Saul smiled, then his smile turned wan. "Mira is no one. She was a wandering bard once - she didn't lie to you about that. She was captured in Kirkwall by slavers, and she foolishly did not wait for a rescue."

"Could there have been a rescue?"

"Anything's possible if enough money changed hands," Saul blew air through his nose derisively. "Especially when the rescue comes in the form of the Dwarven Merchant Guild. But by the time they arrived she already committed the crime, and some rules cannot be broken even by magisters."

"If she had waited -" Fenris said, stumbled, a rarity in his speech, a clot in the careful thought out stream of his words. "If I had convinced her -"

"What's done is done. It's pointless to speculate. You could, of course, feel guilty about having joined her. You can feel guilty for the rest of your life, but it's not as though you haven't paid," Saul pointed at him, nowhere in particular, but everywhere was all the same, all branded. "You paid."

In Kirkwall, they ached like an itch inside his bones. Some nights he found it difficult to sleep, his legs crossing, uncrossing, restlessness in his marrows, his very soul trying to crawl out of him in a bid to get home.

He paid.

Fenris looked up, letting a fringe of white hair hide him; anger was a difficult emotion to hide, a wild shade of red. Gritting his teeth, he went on, "there was never any competition, was there? The fights were rigged. Danarius wanted a rebel as his bodyguard as some sort of post-rebellion trophy."

"I did. But that's not what you want to ask, is it?" Saul smiled his knowing smile and Fenris wished he would stop reading his mind.

"You said that my sister saved my life. What did you mean?"

Saul studied him the way Fenris had swept his gaze over the perfect knuckles and smooth skin of his hands. Slowly, beside them, the brazier burned through the last of its embers.

The room cooled to an acceptable dry heat, but it did not grow darker.

"Do you remember the day of the ambush?" Saul asked; it was hard to tell whether it was a rhetorical question. It wasn't something you'd forget.

Fenris remembered Varania watching him with resignation and resentment through the gates, her lipstick a flash of blood red and her rouge perfectly applied and the kohl around her eyes spreading, two lines running down her cheeks in mirrored symmetry, a perfect imperfection in an otherwise painstakingly made-up face. 

"I saw Varania."

"When you left, she came to me with her mother. She didn't tell me anything I didn't already know," Saul had tells, however faint, beside his mouth creases appeared and faded when he disapproved, and while that was not conclusive in telling a lie at least Fenris knew he had an opinion. "In exchange for the information she asked me to shelter them. As for you - she wanted you to live through it. Her exact words were, 'I'll do anything.'"

A breeze could have blown Fenris over; he had to lock his knees, and rooting himself in the spot he denied, "That can't be true."

"I told her I can't make any promises. After all, it was your master that was coming for you, and so she left, went home, and poisoned him. She put little needles into the middle of his staff and dripped magebane onto the tips. He wouldn't have noticed until he was in battle. Very effective," at Fenris' look of incredulous shock he shrugged. "Do not underestimate women, or people who are not taught to fight. It only means we have to fight in less obvious ways. Ways someone like you would not expect."

"How did you profit from this?"

"I sold him the information that his slaves were having a little uprising. For a pittance. And I let him know exactly where you gathered." Saul told him, chin resting on a knuckle and looking pleased with himself, "before he left, I bought your family at half the wholesale market price, to be paid upon his triumphant return."

"I'm assuming you never had to pay him."

"No," Saul made a sound through this nose, _of course not_. "That was rather the point."

"And you turned around and sold them to Danarius."

"I did," he looked straight at Fenris for a second, unflinching, and in the enchanted glow of their cold exchange his eyes were warm, though whether that was a product of his psyche or the simple effect of enchantment in steel, he could not know. "It was a great plan. I found Danarius a rebel leader to make into a lyrium trophy, Varania got to see her brother live beyond his foolishness, and you got what you wanted - you did something for your family for a change."

He did not regret it, was what he seemed so adamant to convey; all parties involved were satisfied, and Fenris - a new element created from the wreckage of their lives - did not exist when the bargain was struck. 

"Varania - my sister," Fenris owed her this much; Leto might have held a grudge and it was always Varania to the very end, but Fenris searched for a sister, connections, family, and he had found it. "Why did she betray me? Why would she lead Danarius to Kirkwall?"

"Because her Leto is dead and Fenris is not her brother," Saul said. There was no sadness in there, no grief, and yet there was something - something old and raw and monstrous in the late husky deepness of his voice, like a resonating memory they had in common. "Because she never wanted your help in the first place.

"Without your little uprising she was well on her way to becoming an apprentice to your then-master, and no doubt she would have convinced Danarius to take her on as the same if you never freed her. Clever girl, your sister. When you freed her they sent her and your mother into the streets without a single copper. Why wouldn't she betray you?"

He thought she looked familiar, in Kirkwall. He even recognized her in the deep-rooted childhood memories that were hard to block out, hard to erase with the purest lyrium; for those few moments he was happy, the dark possibilities of future lit with the warm glow of an idealistic spark called _family_ he'd heard in stories, saw the woodcuts with mothers and daughters and sons, envied the affectionate attachments between Hawke and Leandra, however shortlived. But he'd known Varania while he was Fenris too, an ever watchful bodyguard scanning the perimeter for his master and seeing a red haired elf girl staring at them from the shadows, sorrowful eyes, seemingly harmless and he'd scowled _scram_ at her like he had done to the street rats, the ignorant free-born children begging in the streets, not cowed into fearful distance by magisters.

Hawke would have stopped him if Hawke was someone else; Varric, perhaps, who had a chance to kill his brother and could not, or Anders, choosing to save a mage even if the mage was beyond saving. But Hawke always, _always ___gave them his sincere flimsy paper-thin-smile and said _it's not my call_ as though he did not lead them, as though they did not follow the roll of his taloned boots scratching on the Hanged Man's wood planked floor.

Into these illusive choices, Fenris fell - and the decision in the end was always the same: _kill them, my pet._

In those early, hazy years, curious child-man fascinated by nothing more than the touch of silk or how the colour of the market awnings changed in the breeze, he was taught only destruction; and no one ever thought to take the gauntlets off his hands so they might create and mend. With Anders, perhaps he was growing naturally attached to a person who nursed him back to health, if he wanted to work out the logic of affection. He simply latched onto the first person that showed him any attention outside of Tevinter, after all the years he roamed loved-starved, touched-starved, and that little hint of love, soething he thought was forever out of his reach, was making him reconsider an oath he made to a magister. All that, for the scarcely heard pleading of a slave. 

Saul broke his rambling conflict, goading him, "and she did promise me she'd do anything." 

"You -" 

"She came to me. She had no resources, you see, living hand to mouth in an alienage, had to keep her wages competitive with the slaves. Thought it was a trap. Freed slaves were promised with distant family, caught again, and then sold back to the Imperium, or Orlais, or Antiva, depending on where there's demand - happens all the time. I told her to bring it to Danarius." 

"Why would you do such a thing?" 

"If she succeeded, you wouldn't be here asking me this question," Saul seemed to sigh. "It's just business and politics. You were one of mine, and one of mine running off is not good for my reputation. Your sister would have made a powerful ally." 

And if he wasn't so hot-blooded and vengeful he'd have had his answers from Varania without walking his way back into Minrathous. Fenris closed one hand into a fist, feeling the ends of his steel gauntlet prickle in the center of his palm, letting the pain anchor him to the present. 

"Anders idolizes you. But it's all a lie, isn't it?" In his sword's reflection Saul's smile was predatory and bright. "You are exactly what you purport to be - a slave broker." 

"You're bluffing." Saul flickered form dark to light to dark again, shaking his head; then there was only his chin in the mirror of the new sword, forcing Fenris to look up. Their eyes met, "he wouldn't have told you anything about me." 

Five hours out of every thirty days, multiplied by hundreds of slaves, most of them doing small, inconsequential busy-work and the few he spent time with in private couldn't have been just for the outwardly obvious purpose - the only purpose Garrett Hawke cared to notice - all the important things. Having survived the messy politics of Kirkwal, Hawke was surprised at every betrayal after six whole years in Hightown. And though he killed the snake that bit him, they still managed to get a bite in first, the clues and hints left like crushed chalk along their journey brushed off as mere coincidences.

"He told me far more than what he meant to," Fenris had an interesting vantage point; and his memories - Leto's memories - was one unexpected loose end, resurrected. "Your decisions have cost me my life once already, and you sent my sister to her death. Am I not owed the truth?" 

"If I tell you the truth," Saul stopped there, nearly grinning at a private jest and there were no tells there, minute muscle movements in a malleable mask. The punchline, _I'd have to kill you,_ never came, presumably because Saul lacked the means. "If you killed me, here, in my home, the Imperium - and I'm not talking about one magister, or even the Archon's inner circle - the Imperium itself will be on your heels. They will assume you tortured their secrets out of me." 

What did Saul deemed more important than anything in the world? Fenris was poor in the way of friends, but he was rich in the quality of them, and he'd known the varied facets of people; people who would gamble their own lives when the alternative was running, they never wanted _things_ , for material wealth or even survival; they were lovers of ideas, of ideals, like Anders, or Merrill, neither he liked. In hindsight his dislike of them was an extension of his myopic existence, of waiting for the hammer to fall and waiting for the other shoe to drop and waiting for his master to tear his life to pieces. 

He did not understand these visionaries, sacrificing others close to them for something _bigger_ as if the treasure they had - that Fenris was envious of, the treasure he was sorely lacking - were not enough for them, that they were somehow better than him, to squander the lives they had.

If how well Saul treated Mira, like a daughter, like his own, was any indication of the guilt he felt towards the sacrifices he brought to this mysterious altar, then he must have felt what he fought for worth more than any wealth in the world.

He was so close to the truth he could feel the shape of it, teasing at his mind.

"Tell me," his ship was waiting. If the Imperium would truly call for his blood, Fenris could be gone by morning. He eyed the swords, "I will deal with the magisters, if they come."

"I have saved more lives than you have taken," the first impression was still there; Saul was righteous as a templar, even without the religious convcitions behind his words they did not waver. "When you were a slave you did not obey, not until it was forced - blood magic, lyrium, what have you. Well, you see, _Fenris_ , when you start an uprising, people like you live a good long while. You fight and maybe you kill some magisters, maybe you even get to kill your master and condemn the rest of the house you come from into the mines. If you're lucky you might eve survive and get away. People like me, who's never thrown a punch in their lives, we die."

"Do you ... hate me?" 

"I do not 'hate,'" Contempt, etched beneath his cheekbones, dimpled his chin, eyes narrowed down and somehow looking down at Fenris even though he was sitting; yet Saul's demeanor remained calm. "When a thing like you appear in the Imperium, I cut it out. Self-preservation, if you will; most slaves can't fight - they're not made for it. I speak for them. I protect them from the foolishness of so-called 'rebels.'"

"They did not ask you to protect them."

It was exactly the wrong thing to say.

And he hadn't known what being on the wrong side felt like, how Varania pleaded with him to please _not throw their lives away_ and he'd yelled at her then, how could she not know that he was doing this for them, he was grown and he wished they would just stop trying to protect him from himself as if he didn't know which end of the sword was the pointy end.

"No. Did your mother ask you to risk your life for her?" Then there was something there, a wink and it was gone but such deep pain as to scratch hollows in his irises, bleaching the colours away, replacing it with something cold and hard like stone.

There he was, the puppetmaster, or the pawn, depending on where you were standing - harvesting slaves the way he harvested his orchards in the endless summers of Tevinter, and rebellions were like a heavy and ripe crop of fresh figs, watching the seeds of it take root and bloom, pruning the wild branches lest the ends grow too heavy and bring down the tree. 

Slaves left behind no records; they did not leave an account of their lives, and any history they made in small-scale rebellions were quickly erased. Only rumours and gossip remained, legends, true or not, of uprisings that left magisters in a panic, made the senate call for secret meetings, legends of rebels that were considered _threats_ instead of a mere nuisance.

But they were mere legends. Nothing concrete. Dust passing through a summer breeze. And there were clearer skies in recent years.

"Did you sister ask to be freed? Did you ask you old master's household slaves if they were willing to go work the rest of their lives in a sunless mine?" Saul had to be provoking him now, taunting with what little he had, and he had only ghosts. "Don't you remember what happened when you went after Hadriana?"

"I killed that witch. What of it?"

As if to remind him he felt moisture between his toes, a surreal, rage-fueled memory; blood on the altar, unwilling sacrifices, and he needn't have asked.

"And what, I should let them hold us hostage?" The bloodletting should have opened their eyes; to see that fighting back was necessary, that it was worth it if in the end the Imperium was grinded to dust and Minrathous nothing more than a myth like Arlathan, just a name, a whisper, a boogeyman; what could happen if mages were ever allowed to rule again. "You are wrong."

"For what it's worth, you - not Leto, I mean you - were never part of the plan. This has never been personal; all I wanted was some stability. Every year I pressure the senate into passing more protection laws for slaves, harsher punishment for those breaking the laws. Fight them, and they'll kill us all - they'll bleed the ones who can't lift a sword to fight the ones who can. What good is that to anyone?"

"In the uprising," Fenris recalled the young ones, the old ones, people who never knew they could fight until Mira told them they could. "There were people who had never fought before, who learned that they would rather go down fighting."

"They made their choice."

"And you made sure they never had a chance."

"A hundred dies, and five hundred lives; you can't argue with the math. But if you think I am so wrong, well, you did give a magister your word," and he smiled, hands moving off his knees as he slid off the seat, gracefully standing and turning away and his hands did not leave prints of sweat behind - no scent of nervousness on him, not at all like a man about to die.

Fenris watched his retreat behind the screen, and he knew if it was him he'd want it too: a clean death beneath an open sky, staring into ink-black Minrathous in night as if it was truly dead and gone, dreaming of its demise as the sword came down.

His next steps were heavy and leaden as he approached the swords on the floor. Staring back were his eyes in a mirror surface, fiery bright, catching the enchantment like red vengeance; in the crackle glow of the other he saw nothing at all, its dull surface belying the golden glow cutting through it like a spirit living within.

Wordless, his knees unsteady and his mind unsure, Fenris made his choice.

It was heavier than ever.


	28. Descent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put the warnings in the end notes to prevent spoiling the plot of this chapter, but if you might be triggered by anything, PLEASE read them.

Garrett Hawke had trouble keeping his eyes closed.

The fade never bothered him, and he had few dreams he remembered, so it wasn't that; he knew Fenris was having strange dreams when they still traveled together, when they talked about their lives instead of both shuttering off the more touchy subjects, a necessity considering who they were now. It might be the lack of dreams instead, the way he exhausted himself, his schedule filled with lessons, parties, small talk until his own voice tired him, drowning out the little murmuring whispers - probably Anders', Hawke had never had much of a conscience - telling him how wrong everything was.

For months he was worried about Anders, how his Anders was out here suffering and he wasn't, and the dreams were all distant voices of him, echoes in strange Fade; now Anders' voice was solid and soft as it always had been, purring by his ear every night, and Hawke woke many times over, noting again how the moon had changed its position, just to know that Anders was still there.

He'd stroke his fingers through Hawke's messy mane, still as Fereldan and unkempt as ever, and Hawke burrowed as if into Anders' chest to listen to a heartbeat, strong and steady, letting it lull him back to sleep.

Each hour they repeated the soft, meandering dance; sometimes Hawke woke hard and wanting, and Anders - well, Anders seemed happy enough to oblige. The rest of the night passed in one quick shut-eye, when they were sweat slicked together, when Anders' breath was laboured from their coupling, when his skin was warm where they touched.

Hawke rested easier; and if Anders seemed a cold dead thing that only warmed up by piling embers beneath him until he burned, it did not stop Hawke from trying.

"I don't like you and him in the same house when I'm not around," he'd said to Anders after Fenris woke up from his long sleep.

It was such a clingy thing to say, so needy-sounding he'd nearly changed his mind, but his head was filled with horrible possibilities from listening to their years of bickering and verbal hatred. Anders gave him that look too, _oh, Hawke, you can't possibly be jealous_ , but Hawke didn't give him a chance to say it.

"For Fenris, being here must feel like being a caged animal. What if he goes mad? How do we know he hasn't?" He kissed Anders' knuckles, the soft tips of his fingers, the worn down, scrubbed out remains of his callouses, and wondered if they remembered hating Fenris. "I just like your heart where it is, that's all. Stay in my room for me?"

He never commanded Anders to do anything; he chose his words carefully, the way a savant had sprinkled powdered lyrium within the lines of a rune, afraid of their relationship bleeding into their contract, and with it this invisible boundary he'd built between himself and the word "magister" would dissolve altogether. It never occurred to him how sad it was that Anders required no chain, no templar, no ropes for his legs to comply, that a man who would once have stripped rooms of curtains and sheets to make himself a rope to climb over the villa's high walls would instead elect to stay in a small — arguably gargantuan but compare to the world, small - suite of rooms because his master wanted it that way.

"You seem happier," and it was the second day after he'd confined Anders to his rooms when Darin told him this, coming down from his literal ivory tower to check on Hawke. "Managed to woo that new gift of yours?"

Hawke froze then, cup halfway to his mouth and mumbling something trite about slow Tevinter apprentices and the Maker-awful heat in this sorry excuse they called a winter.

When he was finally home again after a long day, Anders' breath was full of mint and honey, like he'd been chewing on mint leaves for the taste it would leave in his mouth. Mira had been grooming him again, preparing for Hawke's arrival the way she'd prepared him for his tribute, and he had a faint idea that it was a terrible thing, but Anders kissed him _welcome home, Garrett,_ and Anders untied his sashes and his collar and pulled the laces that bound his bracers, and Hawke was glad only that he was safe, even if safety was a suite of rooms the size of his hightown mansion.

He was worth every dull minute teaching token force magic classes; he was worth every line of innate banter and all the moments he resisted rolling his eyes at yet another self-important magister.

Something was amiss, and with Anders, how could it not be? His mage never seemed quite as spontaneous as he used to be, with his little crooked smiles and hopeful flirting, the little fidgeting thing he did with his hands and playing with his hair when Hawke used to call on him, back when if anything he smelled like sewers, like darktown.

There was an assured confidence he gained in his body, a comfortable shamelessness just short of flaunting, and a loss of - everything else. 

There was so much Anders once - so much his skin couldn't contain him, stretched thin until he was wearing his blood on the outside; and the fury of it broke him open, as though the anger overheated the kiln that made him and the result, explosive. Each night Hawke caressed the collar and he was glad that Justice was not between them, even if all Hawke was left with was the pieces of Anders Justice left behind, no light illuminating the cracks, only hollow dark that sometimes peeked through.

Hawke could live with that. He'd take every shard of Anders he was allowed to have, twenty-nine days out of thirty. But on the afternoon of the thirtieth they were having the same argument again, and that was so strange; they hadn't argued since the last tribute and this was almost a row.

He wasn't as unprepared for it this time, and knowing how agitated he would be at seeing Anders led through the door, Hawke wisely had dinner elsewhere and came back well after dark.

"Another dinner party?" Anders asked, smiling. The dark brown silk of his tunic looked good on him, and the amber of his earring almost, but not quite, matched his eyes.

Shrugging through the restriction of his high collar and feeling the gold thread scratch at his throat, Hawke reached up to unclasp his pauldrons, but Anders was already there, and he felt heat rise in his cheeks at their closeness, at this new intimacy he'd wanted all along.

He let himself relax into their everyday routine, as normal as living in a mansion in hightown, perhaps; after the pauldrons came off his shoulders and the clasps loosened from around his throat and he had Anders to lean on, he could almost breathe.

"The usual mess of mages showing off after dinner," he said, explaining away the few flecks of dried blood Anders was trying to remove with a fingernail. "Don't worry, nobody died. Not this time, anyway."

"Right," his curt response was accompanied by a sound almost like laughter, a mocking half-cough.

They hadn't been friends for years for nothing. Hawke grabbed the tail of Anders' tunic before he had a chance to turn away, "you're angry. What's wrong?"

"What's," and he remembered that look from somewhere, but he hadn't seen it since - since Justice, since the fires of lowtown and it was raining chantry, and the knot that appeared between his eyes was challenge, " _wrong_."

"Anders," his hand shot out to grab Anders, and his fingers, his clumsy big hand, encircled Anders' delicate wrist easily. "No one was hurt -"

"Did the magister bring his own meat to the table, or did he just use a wine serving slave?" It all began so gently, cool and glassy mirror calm as a shallow pool, that Hawke thought for a second he misjudged the tone.

Anders' arm remained where it was, like holding the wrist of a marble statue, and since they met again they never fought, and they were not fighting now. The air between them seemed cold as a sheet of ice and just as impregnable; and while their time was marked with casual sweetness until this moment, Hawke couldn't close the distance as he had before, as whenever he was unsure, with a scrape of his beard to Anders' jaw. Yet they touched, the thrumming of Anders' pulse beneath his thumb steady, half as slow as Hawke's own.

"Someone volunteered."

"And that makes it _so_ much better."

"What do you want me to do, throw a tantrum at dinner?" Hawke tightened his grip, trying to pull Anders towards him, feeling as though taking a step closer was conceding and he couldn't afford to concede, not after everything he'd given already to get here. But Anders was cold and rigid as the polished stone tiles beneath their feet, "come here."

He softened just a smidgen, and Hawke took the chance to yank him closer; the robe fell to the floor in a sigh of feather and silk. "You could have said something. Made them uncomfortable. Maybe -"

"I'm not about to become the conscience of the senate," it should have been obvious that he wasn't - did Anders see him change the minds of the hightown nobles overnight? Did they begin to support the mage cause simply because he defeated the Arishok? Anders' waist was steel in the crook of his arm. "I have never been a miracle worker. Give me something to kill, and I'll smash it into the ground. But politics, Kirkwall, here - I'm just barely keeping my head above the water and that's with help."

"No, no you didn't," and there it was, that bitterness seeping through his very pores that tainted years of their unconventional friendship.

"Are you mad because," Hawke shook his head in disbelief, "because I'm not the hero you expected me to be?"

Garrett Hawke went down to the docks by the Qunari compound many times in the past three years; there was a statue of the champion there, standing with a magical flame at the tip of his sword and armoured in stone. Champion of Kirkwall. Bigger than life, bigger than anyone could have been, impossible to live up to, and nothing at all like Garrett Hawke.

"I'm not mad. I'm," softening more still, the curve of his slender waist fitting snugly into the crook of Hawke's arm. "I don't know. I dreamt of you taking me away from this place for so long and now," he paused, forcing his lips into a pained smile, "I don't even know what I want. Not this. Not seeing you leave the house to party with blood mages every night."

"We could spend the rest of our lives eating boiled bark and running away from templars," Hawke tried for levity, but even his jokes were weighted.

"Is it worth it, Garrett?" _It's worth anything to hear you say my name,_ he thought, as Anders continued on, "turning magister. Is it worth it?"

"Not according to Fenris, probably," Hawke shrugged, and his shoulders were sore from walking all day in that get-up. His pauldrons were heavier than they looked - padded and reinforced like armour. "Please don't guilt me for trying to give us a half-decent life."

"That's not what I'm trying to do."

"Certainly feels like it. What happened today?"

He could see Anders' teeth biting softly at the edge of his lips, and he blushed, remembering a scene from a bath house, months ago now, where he only stood witness for a few minutes before he couldn't stand it any more and he left with the sounds of debauchery chasing him out into the hall.

"It's him, isn't it? Saul's visits agitates you. The last time you saw him you snapped at me too," he tried hard not to be jealous - it wasn't Anders' fault he had to be out there doing whatever he was made to do - but whenever he thought of Anders with someone else it ate at him, like an itch he couldn't scratch.

The most he could do was ignore it until Anders reminded him of it again.

"We agreed not to talk about that."

Whatever wind that powered his sails seemed to have died down, and Anders was finally fluid again the way Hawke had gotten used to, how he flowed around Hawke and fitted to him. Hawke pulled Anders backwards to their bed, springing up with his legs to sit on its edge, and their legs dangled over the side as though they were children.

They had an oversized bed with crimson sheets, so high it needed stairs on the side - though Tevinter beds always had stairs on the side, he'd seen it in the other rooms - and the furniture was inlaid with invory and the backs of the chairs had pictures carved into them, and it was richer by far than Kirkwall, at least his end of Kirkwall and the estate he managed to afford.

Hawke clung to Anders with one arm and gestured at this little corner of the world he owned with another, "it's more than what I ever wanted. You, well, I didn't know it was you I wanted but just ... someone I care about enough to share it with. A hot meal at the end of the day, a warm bed to sleep on, the right to use my Maker given magic - why are you laughing?"

He watched Anders clutch at his stomach, laughing until he was in stitches, laughing until there were tears.

Laughter was better, of course, than watching Anders as he watched the night sky.

Sometimes Hawke'd wake and the bed would be cold, and by the window where the gauze curtains billowed like a blood mist, Anders would be leaning out taking quiet deep breaths. His shoulders would stretch wide and his back would curve and moonlight limed his arms, and on the soft skin over his ribs that Hawke loved to run his tongue over. Hawke would stare until his eyes watered.

At those times, Hawke had flashes of insight that he was not good enough to have this, and he didn't really, truly possessed love. Anders got up in the night to breathe and he breathed like a man drowning.

Anders couldn't stand to breathe the same air as him. 

But in the mornings he'd lean in to kiss Anders and the answer was always a happy hum. Hawke had come to regard what he saw the night before - and many nights before all blurred together into one fuzzy recollection of blond hair silvered by the moon - were all only dreams, until he saw it again.

When Fenris was well enough to travel, Hawke had a new sword forged, and he wasn't sure what he wanted and he had too much money to spend, so he asked for a good weight for a two-hander, whatever was fashionalbe. The result was something far too gaudy and truly fashionable because Tevinters had terrible taste, and that was to a Fereldan turnip. Maker only knew what the Orlesians would have thought about it.

The thing was so shiny and sharp he could trim his beard with it both ways, but Fenris seemed to like it well enough. Not that he had much of a choice, since a sword of mercy wasn't something one could buy at the market on a Sunday. And as he presented it, it seemed logical to ask a friend to kill a shared enemy, as they stood in a garden where so many deals were struck over millenia. This villa stood in a city that had never fallen, not to the chantry or the qunari, not time, certainly, and this was a place where promises had meaning.

Hawke made the arrangements quietly, trying to get around the magisters for once, probably failing, but no one tried to stop him. Darin didn't show up in his courtyard sucking on his teeth _tsk tsk tsk_ either, over the rim of a cold mug. 

Darin remarked on the spring in his step and also how it made a perfect complement to the strange way he sat. Hawke's cheeks grew warm and pink right in the middle of assembly, but he also smiled. No one expected him to pay attention at these things, they only wanted him to show up; most importantly they wanted to see him walking out of the Hall of Magisters' front doors, impossibly high and opened with gears, Dwarven made. His attention wandered to what time he could spare in the morning, Anders' hair tickling the back of his neck, hands on his hips. Hawke could feel it still, imprints, bruises he asked the healer specifically to leave be, something to remind him that he wasn't alone in this.

On the day Fenris was set to leave, Hawke came home early, had a middling meal with exceptional company - old friends, almost like old times - and made love to Anders until he was too tired for dreams.

Garrett Hawke had no complaints at all about Tevinter life.

And when he reached over and found only a cool spot on his bed, Hawke cracked opened his eyes and saw nothing but stardust on his curtains, the shimmering ghost shadow of Anders beneath them, and he closed them again, suddenly afraid.

He'd told himself over and over again that if Anders chose to leave he would not stop him; Hawke would not have tried to help him, and the fact that his Anders was collared and never even tried to leave his rooms did not enter his subconscious. For so long now, weeks, no, months, he stayed put; it was evidence outside of their little endearments, how Anders called him love, _call me love, call me Garrett_ , because Hawke insisted, always touching him when they were near one another, he was convinced that Anders wouldn't leave. Yet the doubt was there in the shape of Anders beneath the curtain but no Anders in his bed, and the quiet of his deep breathing that was only silence. Hawke dug his fingers into the skin of his arms, leaving behind shapes like little crescent moons.

He feared sleep; if he slept then when he woke maybe Anders would no longer be here.

"Good morning."

He woke with a start and a murmur into Anders' chest, magic warming his arms and clearing away the cotton dryness of his mouth. His head ached, the kind of ache from drinking too much wine. Anders had a hand over the ring Hawke wore on a chain, and with the next wave of rejuvenation the headache went the way of bad dreams.

"Good morning," Hawke mumbled back, reaching out to play with Anders' hair, long enough to hit his collarbone now. He liked it that way. "You look tired."

"And you know just what to say," Anders teased him, the whites of his eyes pink and the rest of them puffy.

Hawke gave up on trying to be charming then, letting the heat of his body convey his meaning instead. It was customary, as Darin told him on inquiry, for _personal_ slaves to bathe twice a day: once in the morning so as not to embarrass a magister in public, all perfumed and oiled hair; once in the evening to wash off the day's dust and grime, to be fit for a master's bed. Hawke liked him best in the morning, before the first bath, when Anders' neck had a whisper-thin dusting of dry salt from their sleeping all wrapped up in each other, the grooves, lines between his muscles, the inside of his thighs tasting musky. He liked to press Anders into the bed chest first, give him just enough time to grab a pillow, and spread his arse to expose that pink line of skin to the air, tongue delving into a grasping, clenching pucker, loving the taste of his skin.

There wasn't much left to him _only_ , Hawke imagined, with all the depravities the Tevinters got up to, but he still had this - the cries of his lover escaping to mingle with early morning birdsong, the sound of him pleasing Anders until he begged to be touched. They were slip-silk skin and scars, what a pair, and as Anders hooked a leg over Hawke's shoulder, sideways and leaving himself wide open and accessible, Hawke worshiped his skin, kissed the back of his knee, laved the sensitive places over the knobs of his bones, drawing such reactions he had to hold Anders down or risk a kick, or at least a swift knee.

He loved Anders. He loved the pronounced edge of his jaw and his rounded nape, when his hair was brushed aside and a mess on his red pillows; he loved the pale chest with its glittering gold in daylight, in moonlight, in candlelight. Fleeting smiles, the sharp beak of his nose; he loved it all.

He wrapped his hand around Anders' cock and rocked his hips, and he had a feeling he was no good at this, but Anders was gasping beneath him, shifting, encouraging, teeth over his lower-lip and squeezing so hard and convulsing so sweetly over his cock Hawke had to stop breathing, had to think of distant mountains and perhaps Andraste's actual breasts, a thousand years old, to stop himself from going along. What he wanted - what he needed - was to be clear-headed as he watched this, to stamp Anders' expression of ecstasy into memory, etching into his bones the glazed-over bliss of his eyes and his pulse jumping in that soft spot in his neck Hawke loved to kiss. His hand he licked, tasting more Anders, before leaning down, Anders' knee at his shoulder, testing the man's flexibility as Hawke kissed him deep with cum on his lips. When he came it was with Anders' tongue in his mouth and moaning into him, driving into him, losing himself until his wants was replaced by a lightness, a relief; with a soft chuckle he draped himself over Anders, sweat and heat and the rising Minrathous temperature that came with the rising sun, hot, and then hotter.

In a slaver's garden shed he was made to feel small, insignificant, an errant branch getting itself caught in a great machine; and this was the opposite of that. And somewhere out in the night, a man who took possession of what was his once a month was gone, dead, his heart probably a pulp in his chest. He had no idea how much of a weight it was until it was gone, how much he wanted to distance himself, because falling was painful, and falling for a man that wasn't entirely his was like falling onto a bed of nails. 

It might still be oblivion, a cavernous sinkhole, the cliffs of the Wounded Coast, but he could be brave.

"I love you," he said, heavily, all seven years of it; all the stories they swapped sitting by the fire trying to stay awake while keeping watch, all the flirtatious glances, the bad pick-up lines that fell flat, the silences, the hopeful looks, the letters he wrote and scratched out and balled up, spilled ink on his oaken desk.

So simple. He should have said it years ago, when it mattered.

The pause was far too long, "I love you too, Garrett."

It was the moment his mother dashed up to his sister's broken body -

The moment his brother pushed past him in templar armour -

The second his mother turned around and the _seam_ in her neck screamed at him even if her steps were whisper quiet.

Too little, nearly four years too late, but he ignored the pause. Was it any wonder that he didn't want to believe that any more? There were two realities, one where Anders stopped loving him, and the other, Anders smiling like his skin was crepe paper pushed into place over a wire mask, but the words were still love, Garrett, _love._

And wherever it might lead them, Saul was dead.

Or so he had hoped. It seemed little time passed between an ironclad promise made in a magister's courtyard to the sound of it being broken, and it did not break in as much a crash as it was a whimper, in a letter wrapped in a shade of dark green whose pigment must have had a pint of blood mixed into it, all rusty and dark tidings.

A cancellation of tribute. At least he was given that - but the slaver wasn't dead. The slaver was sending him letters.

He rushed into his bedroom with the news. There would be no funeral bells, but he didn't need to tell Anders that. No more tributes; no more visits, no more bath house punishments and no more demon Saul whispering into his Anders' ears to turn him against Hawke.

Anders looked down and smiled, or at least it looked like a smile, to Hawke. It took a week for everything to drop out beneath them, no warnings, no fights, no confessions. Just a sudden descent into nothingness, so fast it pushed the air out of his lungs.

There were rumours in the Circle and among the magisters, but never outright news; the slaver Saul had gone on a vacation, the slaver Saul had traveled to Seheron, he'd cancelled his appointments and retired for good. It didn't matter to Hawke which was true, just as long as he stayed away.

Fenris, he'd heard nothing from, but Fenris couldn't very well write to him. He gave the elf a month to get back into Kirkwall and perhaps another month before a letter might leave the Viscount's office with a printed, orderly, blocky script written like a casualty report.

Maybe he simply failed again. Maybe he'd changed his mind. Maybe he didn't want to risk getting killed when getting out was so much easier.

Maybe he'd changed his mind about helping Magister Hawke, but Hawke was not in the mood for reality, especially where reality chose to betray him.

He was not by nature a suspicious man - he'd let other people do that sort of thing for him. His open expression won him friends, and if the person he spoke to was untrustworthy, someone other than himself would have known, usually Fenris, sometimes Aveline. But his love was not blind, never was, which was how he'd made a mess of things in Kirkwall in the first place, the wreckage of his love life buried in the wreckage of his old bedroom, a pile of words inked and scratched out again, _Dear Anders, I've been an idiot._

Never sent, not a one.

But this Anders wasn't one he trusted implicitly, and Hawke sometimes thought his lover was still possessed, only not by Justice anymore, but something else entirely. Sometimes Anders was simply elsewhere, everything about him calm and no life in his gaze; Hawke didn't know if it was remembrance or regret, and he didn't know how to ask.

It was one of those days, not a Tuesday, for that would have been more predictable; it was a day after being dragged to the coliseum to watch fights that he could have fought himself in half the time, and if his friends were with him in the team matches, a tenth of the time. It was a second day off, nothing planned except a day in bed with all their meals brought in.

He'd always wanted to have his meals brought into bed, but he wasn't about to let the servants in Kirkwall handle a thing like that when he had a two-sovereign whore staying in his bedroom on a rest day.

They'd fed each other sliced apples covered in grape syrup, and he'd licked the syrup off Anders' lips and where his skin was sticky in a line down his chest. Hawke found himself hating the taste of Tevinter, sweet notes, for sure, but the crunch of a Fereldan apple was gone, its staleness covered up with Tevinter, Tevinter with its overgrown spires and towers, Tevinter with hammered gold leaf and pewter or something equally dull beneath. As if reading his mind, Anders dragged him up and kissed him on the lips, plump with syrup and wine, and there was a wicked glint in his eye like the first time they were in bed together, the danger of being with a man possessed.

"What would you like, Garrett?" Anders wiped at his chest, rubbing to get the last of the stickiness off; and as that question left his mouth Anders stretched all feline above him, the sharp wing of an elongated hipbone, skin as soft as the skin over his cock, rubbed itself across Hawke.

Hawke moaned but he didn't want to choose. He laughed suddenly, the sound bubbling out from all the sugar, or simple happiness, "surprise me."

It was midday, a ridiculous time to be playing in bed, irresponsible, even; and Hawke couldn't stop smiling, blushing, and they weren't doing anything extraordinary, nothing they haven't done before but everything was always new with Anders, his hand between them encircling their cocks, rubbing side to side and slick heated up with magic, the weight of him pressing down until he was compressed and lovingly trapped.

Hawke breathed quicker as his balls tightened and Anders was smiling back above him like a mirror, and Anders' hand was at his throat. He'd heard of this, never tried it, seemed too risky to do with anyone else but a healer, and the healer wasn't available after their first night together. There was a maniac twinkle, giddy in his eyes, then a soft kiss, as if in eternal parting.

Hawke was usually in tune with danger, but with Anders touching him like this he ignored the warning. Anders' hips rocking against Hawke and his mouth bit and kissed down his neck; a hand on his cock, a hand on his throat tightening as he tightened below, and he realized Anders was smiling, his mouth crooked violently against Hawke's collarbone. The huffs of breath he felt was not a gasp, was not pleasure, but oddly, dangerously, laughter.

Still it was too late to stop this; his limbs were cooling fast and his fingertips were like ice, his scalp covered full of pins and needles. Hawke wanted to scream and kick but Anders was covering him, his weight solid and getting heavier every second, and when a cry escaped through the constricted tightness of his throat he _moaned,_ and a hand stroked and stroked at him, and a hand was holding him down, killing him, and he came crying, he came spurting through the day turning into night at noon. He was real and unsubstantial like watching himself from afar; he was real and he felt amazing and he wasn't shooting anymore, he'd run out of cum but he convulsed like a ragdoll, until Anders too, slumped on top of him.

Between them the ring pulsed, a heartbeat finally fast, slow, a flutter, and Hawke was surprised that he wasn't dead.

Anders came to, sat up, blinked and stared down at his hands, and his mouth twitched as though to laugh but nothing came. There was a hollow darkness to him Hawke never noticed before, a translucent fragility to the skin beneath his eyes.

His eyes, they were bright red, and they stared back at Hawke, empty, no love here, no matter how long Hawke elected to stare. 

He'd spent so long trying to deny it. He'd spent so long trying to hide it. He'd pretended for as long as they could, until they couldn't. Hawke didn't ask Anders if he just tried to kill them both; maybe if he could forget this, to go to work, to come back again, everything could be back to what they were. But there was never a _normal_ for them here, not since this extravagantly opulent home, not since the new red sheets and Anders' collar and his bloodstone ring.

Hawke didn't know how to explain to the slaves that he needed a new room, so he found the one Fenris used to lie in, comatose, and he stared at the sea of soft lavender pink and tried not to think.

"Bad day?" Darin asked, after takiing one look at his bloodshot eyes and his collar with the very last clasp done up.

At some point he had to make new friends in order to survive. In Kirkwall it took him a year, and that was by sheer accident. Here? He wasn't sure he ever could learn to trust anyone.

"The worst," his voice was ragged, then he coughed from the effort of speaking.

"Love troubles?"

"Is there any other kind?" Hawke retorted, then coughed again. Darin gave him a look that was either condescension or pity; Hawke couldn't tell. And at this moment, Hawke couldn't find enough effort to care.

"You know, with the tribute termination - of course I know that. If it's official and it's you I probably know about it, I'm your on-the-book handler." Darin leaned on his chair until he seemed poured into it, and they both watched the apprentices throw fireballs into the open water, missing all the floating targets. "Your golden slave has no contract now. No protection, no rights, no rules."

"I don't want to force him into doing anything," he didn't know why he was confiding in this man, he was slimy, he was creepy, but for some reason he had a look as though he understood - not everything, but this he did with personal foibles and anecdotes, a list of his mistakes he could probably compare with Hawke on parchment side by side.

"Of course you don't. But he is yours," Darin said, purposeful and slow. "And you are responsible for what's yours. If it's broken, you fix it. Or you learn to live with it."

"You don't just go around assuming that you can fix people," he'd never tried; but Hawke knew, from a very young age, that people wanted to go their way no matter what he suggested. Expecting to have any influence beyond the very surface was asking for disappointment. 

Darin was looking at Hawke's hands, then at his bracers, "you're not wearing the bracelet."

"What bracelet?"

"The heliotrope. It's a life link between a healing slave and its master," Darin said, fingers about to strum ont he table, then he held it into a fist instead. "Brilliant bit of technology - we adapted it from the Qunari control rods. Gives a healer more incentive to heal its magister. Where's yours?"

"I have a ring," he couldn't very well unclasp his collar with the bruise pattern of a clear dark hand over his throat. Hawke patted his chest, "I have it on a chain under my robes."

"You do know what you're supposed to do with it, yes? You were told?"

"Told what?"

"There's a spell that comes with it. A few drops of your blood on that ring, two lines of incantation, and you become the only owner he remembers."

"That's terrible," and Hawke looked aghast, horrified, and meant every muscle twitch in his jaw. "Fenris has his memories removed years ago and he barely functioned. I can't do that to someone I _care about._ "

_Love_ nearly slipped out. Hawke bit his tongue.

"It doesn't wipe out anything - it just blends memories together," Darin explained. "Look, he was perfectly content before you came along. He'll just go back to being perfectly content again, except he'll be devoted to you. Honestly, if it wasn't for that collar, no one would have made a bid for him at auction. People want to see the same kind of devotion he displayed at auction, and the only way to guarantee that is the collar."

"It's blood magic."

"Just barely. And it's not as though you have to pick a slave and use up all their blood, if that's what you're worried about. A few drops of your own is hardly a moral quandary."

"I don't -" Hawke sighed, knowing how dumb it sounded, in a city where blood magic was performed at private dinner parties. "I can't do that to him."

"You're a bloodmage," Darin said, matter-of-fact, quiet enough that the apprentices couldn't hear them over their fizzling flames. Hawke stared at him, "it takes one to know one. If you don't want to go slitting your wrists in public that's fine by me, but don't go flaunting how much more noble you are than the rest of us."

"Darin, I'm not -"

"Look, _Magister_ Hawke," Darin sat on the word as though to keep it there, his chin so close to his chest it touched the jeweled brooch on his robe. "It's all about control, and a lot of mages here can't be trusted to use their own blood. I'm sure whatever you learned it for was important."

"It was," but damned if Hawke could remember why now. Another life and death situation, no doubt; he had a lot of those.

"I never regretted it," Darin said, and it was as sincere as a silver lining, rare but true. "So it really depends on whether you think it's worth it."

When he went home that day he found Mira kneeling outside the master suites, a brush and a bucket by her knees, and she looked up in entreaty as Hawke approached. She always tapped the door and waited until she was called in. Anders had shut her out too.

Hawke tried to remember the last time he saw a real smile on Anders, and it wasn't too long ago, but not at him, never at him, his eyes fixed on Saul and there was so much love between them he had to look away. The ring pulsed on his chest; he unclasped his collar by himself for the first time in months, and the ring pulsed, heat, cool, heat, cool, softly in his palm like a living thing.

The occasions where he used this blade he carried around all these years were few, and it was only ever tainted with his own blood. It didn't have magic folded into the blade, just plain steel, made by a blacksmith in Lothering and given to him as an herbalist's first knife. He was terrible at that; he was terrible at most skills his father tried to teach him, until they both figured out together that his talent was not the creation or the calling of elements, but the movement, the force inherent in the earth and the attraction of masses.

The blade, he kept. With it he scratched a line in his palm, and he closed his fist, feeling the heat and pain drip down his arm. He said the words softly, strange Tevene syllables rolling easily over his tongue. And he followed it with something out loud in common.

"Forgive me."

He wasn't sure with whom he was begging for forgiveness; the past, his father, his friends, Anders. None of them heard him, anyhow. He undid the clasp, and the ring fit snugly over his finger.

Deep breaths.

Garrett Hawke breathed like a man drowning. He wasn't sure if he could stand mirrors right now, but his chest was lighter, a pulsing weight lifted, and with this hand he was connected with his love.

With his empty hand he opened the door.

"Master," Anders' smile was the sun.

And it was worth everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains: violence, abusive relationship, breathplay, suicide attempt.


	29. Reunions

Garrett Hawke possessed the handwriting of someone who had a manservant to handle his correspondence, someone didn't know how to transition the curve of one letter to the apex of the next. He was a jumble of incomplete sentences and hesitations, awkwardly ended paragraphs and empty spaces, leaving most of a blank page to hang on its own. Ink spots dotted like time pieces in between the lines, letting the reader know just how long he stared between them; where it smeared as the page folded before the ink dried was the audacity of a young man, fresh and bold and messy and unreadable.

It probably took longer for Varric to decipher them than it was for Hawke to write them.

Since the distance between the docks and the Circle was, if not walking distance, then at least messenger distance, and frankly negligible between friends if the stairs up and down from the Hawke estate to the Hanged Man was any indication, Varric knew very well that this was all a farce. Each short message took a week and contained very little outside of vague reassurances of their collective health; he was well, Anders was well, they were in no danger of being sacrificed to dragons. They had Fenris, stop worrying, but please keep worrying since the elf was ill and comatose and it was best not to move him, keep your distance, _the magisters were watching_ couched in grovelling words like _we wouldn't dream of letting a slave go, please come visit when he is better._

Varric wasn't worrying about the elf, not until Hawke's news that Fenris was so ill he was all but skin and bones. Minrathous was Fenris' home, as much as Fenris liked to deny it, he knew its ins and outs better than the rest of the group, and he could travel its streets safer than any one of them alone. This was apparently a false assumption.

Damn Hawke to the Void for getting himself caught the moment he arrived, just as Varric knew he would. _It's out of your hands,_ he recalled Florian's words. Magister Hawke was busy playing his part clutching his newly minted title like a security blanket; Varric wondered if he couldn't just leave him here, the sweetheart of Tevinter politics with his Anders kept like a pet in a great big house.

_Come visit, Varric, before you leave, when Fenris is better_ , Hawke wrote. Never considering why other people gathered about him, drawn to him like iron to lodestone.

Varric had no set address anyway, so he dismissed most of the guards from out of town, hired some locals, and got down to business. Isabela started running her ship for trade, safest thing in the world with a bloodmage on board, padding the hold with Kal-Sharok lyrium - not the chantry-regulated kind but truly grey-market refined dust - and Seheron tea more expensive by the ounce than deathroot. It was a most profitable way to wait.

Isabela prowled the docks and whorehouses from Rivain to Antiva with her nose in her cups, sipping and looking drunk, listening to sailors gossip about Sebastian fielding his army with mercenaries and chantry loyalists, templars that hadn't yet gone rogue, mages too tamed to know they were not beasts. A maelstrom gathering strength around starkhaven.

Business was so good he considered staying for the sake of it, but; the entire continent was set to become a war zone. Discreetly Varric began to build a stockpile of lyrium and Antivan rum. When there were armies of templars on the loose, someone had to supply the dust.

When Hawke sent the first bit of good news, Isabela was due in Antiva City; Fenris was awake. Good thing he had Anders looking after the sick elf when Hawke was busy playing magister, Varric read with horrid fascination. And the next few missives documented his steady recovery even though they were still sparse of detail, Hawke's friends displaying commendable cooperation for two people that habitually hated the other; then the news stopped coming entirely, and Varric nearly panicked, picturing Fenris rampaging through the newly acquired villa - Fenris' ex-master's villa - and killing everyone in sight, including Hawke and Blondie.

A week passed, then two and nothing, not a drip of gossip made it to his ears. Varric had Hawke's address, and now that he was on the right side of sure that Hawke did not die a grusome death with an angry elf's hand in his chest, he could just visit, like Hawke said. But there was no invitation and Varric wasn't one to invite himself without a fitting, dramatic entrance.

And to be fair, a direct confrontation with Magister Hawke and the two friends he had officially taken on as slaves brought a bad taste inside his mouth. Varric trusted Hawke, knew him like a brother - bad analogy, strike that then, better than a brother - but he was experienced with Tevinter and had experienced watching the body of a loved one walking like a marionette on bloody strings. Caution kept him to the Bearded Dragon, with its rickety chairs and nightly brawls, and in the deepest part of him, in memories marked firmly "do not disturb," a distant sense of helplessness haunted.

Varric worried for all three of them, but all he could do was wait.

Business kept him busy, especially since lyirum meant the guild and he couldn't run it with imaginary cousins, so far from _home_. So the weeks stacked up, as did his stockpile that now included poisons and weapons, a treasure trove covered in thin crates of fermenting fish. Some of it was payment for Florian's services; having a charming bard in the city guaranteed an excellent supply of wine; some he kept as a long term investment, or what passed for it in a time of war.

The value of currency often came crashing down during a war. The value of liquid gold, more often than not, flew sky high. People liked to forget.

Varric saw that it might be a good time to install himself as just another merchant prince in Minrathous, when suddenly the unsteady nature of having volatile friends rushed back into his life through the window in his now familiar suite of rooms. 

He saw a shock of white hair first, curling and unkempt, brushing at stiffly feathered shoulders, green eyes as sharp as ever. Then a Sword of Mercy was pushed through the window, presumably so that Varric wouldn't make the mistake of shooting him between the eyes.

It was a close thing, Bianca ready on his shoulder and his back against the door; Fenris with hair long enough to tuck behind his ears, the lines by his eyes deeper, but the rest of him didn't seem any worse for his illness.

"Sodding elf. Bianca was getting mighty twitchy there for a second."

"Your bolt would have gone right through me anyway," Fenris reached up to comb fingers through his hair; new habit. Probably something he hadn't noticed himself. A dull water stain was an eyesore on his right shoulder; Varric wondered if he knew it was there.

His hair wasn't the only thing that changed. Varric couldn't quite place it - ah, right. If he was as fidgety as he was in Kirkwall that head of hair would have been whipping all over the place and spent half the time in his eyes.

He seemed less shadowed. There was a story there; Varric did math in his head, the cost of a case of Tevinter wine bound for Antiva against an original story, possibly a bestseller.

"Our Hawke didn't say anything about setting you loose," Varric chewed those words over, and added, "he learned a thing or two from me, then, at least. Used to be as subtle as a bull."

"Hawke hadn't told me he was meeting with you."

"I haven't met with him. He's been writing me letters."

"Curious," and he combed his fingers through his hair absentmindedly again, unselfconscious. "I was supposed to get on a ship, but it's not leaving until first light," then something was still there, that strain of permanent sorrow between his brows, more prominent with his hair back than when his forehead was always shadows, "and I do have unfinished business here."

"I believe I have a case of Aggregio with your name on it if you'd like to swap stories," Varric pulled the room's door open, gesturing for Fenris to come along. "I must say I'm glad to see you well, elf."

"And it is good to see you again, dwarf."

His voice seemed lighter, less like a man on the run and not at all like one who was recently ill, and Varric had to turn around to give him a second look.

If it wasn't Fenris that walked behind him, Varric would have sworn that he was smiling. A spark of humour had always been there, dry as cheap white wine he wouldn't touch, but occasionally it shone through the brooding. Now though, it cut through him like sunlight, in his steps, in his no longer hunched back, in the way he walked straight ahead rarely turning to watch for imaginary blood mages close behind.

Varric made up a list of questions in his head and got mentally ready to introduce them one by one. For now, the undercity beckoned; no matter where he went he couldn't get away from cities that were built on top of cities.

Give him a week and he could make a home anywhere; with three months and change, he practically owned the place. 

A city as old as Minrathous was never planned; it grew like a living creature, swallowing the sea water as it expanded beyond what its boundaries could hold. Beneath it were trash heaps, centuries worth of it, discarded clothing, crooked swords and rusted pots, bones piled high and bleached so white they bounced back any light you gave it. One of the cold cellars below the tavern had a wall bricked over leading into the old roads; Varric rented out the room adjacent and after a few bribes, he had the wall removed and a hidden door built in its place. There were no guards posted this far away from the center of the city, but he wasn't about to risk walking with their distinctively tattooed elf out on the streets. 

They walked side-by-side and quietly, as if afraid to wake the dead, and Fenris was curious but surefooted next to him. Fenris seemed to have lost one habit and gained another; the startled fear had turned to awe at their environment, curiosity and not looking as though the shadows would jump out at him.

Their path led them out right into a disused room in his warehouse; he could hear the lapping of the waves against a lone dock, and though it was not warm and the stink was lessened, something did hit them full-blast the moment he opened the hidden door.

Fenris made a face, "ugh. Fish."

"Still the best way to hide contraband, I'm afraid." Into one of the cold rooms Varric went, moving pans of fish and brine about - well sealed, no one wanted fish flavoured rum - to pull a case of wine from beneath. Fish flavoured rum, though. Might be a market for that, closer inland. 

They each took a bottle and made their way to the loading bay; it wasn't a full moon, barely enough to see by, a good night to plan an escape.

"If you were Hawke," he was _worried, damn the elf._ "I would have shot the soft bit of your shoulder against a wall when you crawled through that window."

Fenris raised an eyebrow in the dark, roguish quiet save for the scritch-scratch of his gauntlet, twisting at the cork in his wine bottle. This, he might never have said before, "I gave you cause to worry. I apologize."

"Hmmph," Varric took a pull from the bottle and made a face. It was syrupy. He didn't know what the fuss was about this pavali. "Accepted," then, because he'd always thought Fenris was _picky_ about his wine, "this stuff is disgusting."

"I believe I used to drink it out of spite. That I could take something that belonged to Danarius, something he treasured, even, and squander it; that was gratifying. Pavali is too costly to drink out of the bottle." Fenris took a sip too, undiluted and of course too sweet and strong, an indulgence magisters didn't take; and so he found he must. "Even this is better than the swill at the Hanged Man."

"Cheap dig. You could have left a note."

"I couldn't have," Fenris failed to elaborate.

And Varric knew better than to press. "What was so important then?"

Part of starting up and keeping an information network in place was testing his knowledge. Varric knew that The Slaver had his slaves sent away on temporary work and given his guards a night off - practically street gossip, since it was such an uncommon thing for slaves to be given free time; and it was no secret too, that he'd done it again tonight. An old city like this lived and breathed, its people kept strict schedules, and any aberration disturbed the makeup of the crowds even in the tavern Varric rented his rooms. It was easy to see where the trouble centered, if one followed the ripples from the outside in.

He didn't want to think his friend would lie, but did Fenris consider him a friend?

"I told you about the slaver Saul, have I not?"

"You mentioned that he was the one who sold you, yes," Varric noted how Fenris sat stoic at this mention of past history. "Were you planning on killing him?"

"Planning has never been my strong suit," Fenris weighed his words then, visibly waffling over his choices. "Do you understand what it's like to live putting one foot in front of another? That one time we chased after Hadriana - that rage - it was like that. I felt compelled to act."

"You need to learn to ask for help."

"I apologized." Fenris paused, shutting off that line of conversation, "though I do not believe I could have asked for help - it did not enter my mind. Either way, I failed. On my way back, I was ambushed, poisoned. And if you have been corresponding with Hawke, I assumed he shared the rest of the story."

They stared out at the water and quietly drank their bottle of syrupy Tevinter wine, and the moon rippled across the calm waves. This could have been any old warehouse in Kirkwall; even the smell of fish was the same, more pungent, more ripe, but salt water and the waves, the inside of a warehouse made for clandestine meetings had the soul of home even if the shell was different, Minrathous wintera mirror of Kirkwall summer night.

"I'm sure you can fill in the blanks," then Varric told him of the work he did while waiting for things to settle down for his friends, and how his business had blossomed in the waiting.

In the end he told Fenris he was only waiting for Hawke to change his mind about keeping a title in Tevinter, and by then he must have been drunk, because he hadn't even admitted that to himself until now.

"Hawke is not going to change his mind," Fenris was used to the strength of Pavali and he sounded sober, though the subject might have something to do with it.

As the sky lightened, and somewhere in the back of Varric's mind he knew that Fenris had to leave or miss the boat he said he had to catch, Fenris told him why waiting for Hawke was the most futile of endeavors.

Out through the streets strung with lit-lanterns, in sight of the docks and where the dock workers, the newly returned from Seheron with their fresh slaves and their wailing could be heard when the city was not yet awake, magisters slept restfully in their beds.

It was a common misconception, outside of Tevinter, that mages had it easy in the Imperium. They had property, they held titles, they ruled a country - these were all true; but taken as a whole from cradle to pyre, the Circle mage in Thedas probably lived about as long. Maybe not as well, but likely just as long.

Darinius was named for the first Archon of the Imperium. Imagine, for a second, that he had no magic. That he was mundane. Such high hopes placed on an infant with ears and eyes that marked him half-blood, superior, inferior, a complicated relationship watered down by the eons but altogether _different_. Elf-blood meant more likelihood of manifesting at an early age, so his magister father named him after an Archon. Not many dared. His fathered dared many things.

But the hope, an only child, pride and joy; that he never was. His father lost the villa, died in the process, and Darinius won it all back. The Magister, as Darin remembered him - never, ever, called him father, never again - might have been proud.

Darin did not care to give one copper piece what The Magister would have thought. Though laughing in his face as he took it all away, now, that would have been something worth living for. He had one goal since he was a boy, and he accomplished that long ago. Now there left only the motions of keeping himself afloat.

Then in came Florian like spring rain into his life. A summer storm, lightniing and wild beauty with the sun shining in between showers and just as predictable. A monsoon of epic proportions, battering through the canvas coverings to the windows of his heart. Darin was never unfeeling; he had no opportunity to be anything other than what he became, and as far as he was concerned, he came out of his upbringing untainted.

He'd let his guard down, for a while, opened the doors just wide enough to let some air in; and while he could never have been happy - too cautious, too realistic for such a thing - he was at least content.

Now he wasn't sure if he was quite moving on as he was keeping busy, but he wasn't using slaves like punching bags anymore; he'd grieved enough for a man he nearly begged to stay. Darin put his life back together, shifted the pieces so it looked, on a good day, almost as if Florian was never there.

Today was a good day, not hot enough to cook eggs on the walkways, and the nightmares left him alone.

Also, Florian was by his bed.

Darin had dreamt of him often in the beginning of going without. They were almost-dreams, a ghost that lingered in his room, in the indentation of his old pillow since discarded, in the few articles of clothing he left behind, a tantalizing promise that he would come to fetch them never fulfilled.

"Did you finally come to fetch your things?" He asked, proud that he hadn't started with sleepy sounding endearments.

"And he asks why I don't visit," Florian practically purred down at him. "Such a charmer."

"Did you kill anyone coming in?"

"You know me better than that," Florian smiled all the way up to his eyebrows, his delicate fingers brushing sleep messed hair away from Darin's eyes.

"Are you staying?" Darin said, flat, keeping any hopeful sentiment out of the question.

"If I say no, then you'll tell me where my things are. If I say yes, then you'll get all haughty and annoyed at how long it took me to come back," the loose braid he wore had his hair framing his face, and as he bent down, the soft wisps that escaped brushed over Darin's cheeks. "You're an easy man to read."

"You'd be the only man in Tevinter to say so," his hands, they bunched at his sides and he timed his breath and his heartbeat, keeping them slow, and he clenched them and dug his nails into his palms. 

Florian climbed over him, straddled his hips, the assortment of needles and blades attached to his belt shifting and jangling, making the kind of sound one could only hear in their bones, touching. He knew they were there. Darin shuddered and his breath caught; above him, Florian smiled like a cat.

"Tell me you've missed me," Florian caught his wrists, one in each hand, and brought them up above Darin's head, and he was again closer. His breath was sweet, honey and mint leaves, a habit every slave coming out of Saul's training never seemed to lose.

He did not struggle as Florian tied his wrists to the headboard, "I thought I made it quite obvious."

Beneath the boast his skin quivered; his whole body was on the verge of shaking. They stopped playing this game long ago, when Florian's contract ran out. There were rules then, and no matter how far they pushed there was never a moment where he felt threatened; even Darin wasn't sure what he was capable of when threatened.

His soul was bound for the Void but he had no wish to take Florian with him.

"Relax," Florian put his hands on Darin's chest and let his weight sink down, just enough to make it uncomfortable to breathe. "I'm not going to kill you."

"You're a good liar," he missed this, the weight, the smell of him. The smell of fine things, cut flowers and just a hint of nervous sweat. He said so, "and I missed you."

Then there was a knee on his chest and a hand on his throat and he nearly bit his tongue for the fear.

Florian tightened his grip and slapped Darin with his right hand - his stronger hand, open-palmed, stinging, cracking across one cheek. Before he could react, that fine hand, the wielder of blades, whipped back in for a backhand. Darin gasped, but could not get enough air; Florian's laughter was crystal on velvet above him. 

In the wake of his laughter Darin fought instinct, his blood whispering _danger_ all the while in the old language of dragons, of monsters. He was a monster himself, and he didn't need to do this, he survived just fine without it, you see, but it left him vindicated every time, bruised and bloodied with marks all over his skin.

He was in control of his body. This was proof.

But Florian wasn't so steady, "I didn't come here just to hurt you, you know."

"Could have fooled me," Darin said through his cut lips.

Florian stared at his reddened lip, a trail of blood in the corner, "I have salt for that, if you like."

"I prefer honest pain," Darin said, smiling, wincing as it stretched his wound. "The kind that hurts your hand."

"And he wonders why I left him," Florian said to an imaginary audience somewhere above them, sat back on his heels, straddling Darin, the tips of his fingers counting Darin's ribs, strumming down. His nails were too short for this to hurt.

"You left because you _could._ I don't blame you." 

"That's a lie, everyone in Minrathous knows that's a lie," Florian elegantly arched an eyebrow. "But I didn't come here to fight."

"I do miss your singing."

"It's hard to climb a wall with a lute, love," Florian leaned over and kissed him, feather light. Blood on his lips, his translucent skin, clung like crushed gemstones, left to glisten in the watery light of dawn. "I have news."

"You can't send a letter?" Darin rattled his hands against the headboard, still bound.

"You speak of missives in the Imperium as though they can ever be secret. No, I can't send you a letter. I can't even be seen talking to you without _them_ getting suspicious."

"Well?"

"Sebastian Vael is on the march."

"He is not," Darin would have known. 

"He _will_ be," he placed a finger in front of Darin's mouth, _shush_. "Do you ever think about that one time," and his head tilted in just such a way, sweetness permeating his eyes at that particular angle - it was worse than blood magic. "When we drank a lot of wine and said we could run away?"

Sharp-mouthed, Darin would have called out _tangent_ but it was a change of subject for the better.

The way Florian sparkled could cut distance - months of it, possibly even years if they had years - into shreds, into ribbons of lonely nights suddenly uncounted. And Florian would think Darin to be without charms; he had far too much of it, light followed him and he chased it into prismatic shards sharp enough to cut, rainbow-coloured at his jaw, as if he was made of glazed porcelein.

Darin found himself saying yes, reverently; they danced then, spinning until they were dizzy in the atrium, watched the murals about them whir into splotches of smeared paint and getting drunk on Florian's words, _we'll buy some land in Rivain, and you'll become a seer and I'll sing in the local tavern. We'll wear gold on our necks and probably won't fit in. And we won't care that we never would._

"It's not a bad plan," Florian whispered in his ear, having crawled over his chest and found a spot to settle over his shoulder where his collarbones didn't jut out like a short blade. "If you get some walking papers forged and buy a house there, maybe you can leave before everything blows up."

"Florian -" but Florian stopped that protest with one up-raised hand.

"Spare me your attempts at changing my mind. Not that I can change Prince Vael's. By now he's had a dozen different letters from a dozen different spies all telling him the same thing: the man he is seeking is in Minrathous. He will come."

Florian coaxed out Darin's stories a long time ago, and knew exactly where to stroke; the little dreams of freedom from this life, the balance of maintaining a place in Minrathous. But reality was too far from dreams. Templars were in Rivain too, slaugthered their Circle mages to the last. He'd heard. There was nowhere in the world for a mage to run - not even here.

"Hawke will not allow Prince Vael to simply take his mage," Darin said after running through the scenarios in his head. "Though he can be rather unpredictable."

"I've met this 'Anders' of his. He's hardly worth the trip. Don't know why he bothered. Not sure why Vael is bothering. Unless he wants to hang him naked off the side of the chantry as some sort of living statue," Florian snorted, amused. "But he will come without an invitation, and bring an army."

"You're suggesting that we should send an invitation and hope he brings a smaller retinue."

"Minimize the damage," Florian wiped the blood off his mouth, and Darin stared at the rusty colour of it rubbed into the few lines he had, barely noticeable, _pity_. "You're good at that."

He was, and the weeks spent with the Champion of Kirkwall, probably the reviled of Kirkwall now that his name was synonymous with the chantry falling down all fiery blood and death, they were just that, minimizing the possible damage of a typhoon like Garrett Hawke. 

"And how will I convince Prince Vael to leave without Anders?" If the sum offered was proportional to his wrath, and Garrett Hawke's insistence on keeping Anders as deep as his sulk, between them was a conversation Darin wanted no part of.

"Bind him to a rack and offer him up as main course. Let Vael borrow the bed pet for one day. Knowing what I know about Sebastian Vael, a slave like that would be too much of a scandal to take back to Starkhaven."

"Hawke will not agree to any of that."

"Hawke will agree if he realizes it's the only way for him to keep Anders. What's one night? And if I remember this right, it's his duty to share his slaves for the good of the Imperium."

"And you?" Darin lived with a bard for five years. Bards appeared to love, to laugh, and at appropriate times there was sorrow; but they came with no guarantee that any of it was genuine. "What are you getting out of this?"

Five years, and Florian probably knew him better than anyone, traced the boundaries of Darin's dreams and nightmares with his lips. It wasn't all romantic even outside their games, either; there were nights too, when Florian left through the side entrance or the cellar passageways and came back just as sight unseen, and a magister might have passed away in the night, died of a heart attack or food poisoning the next day. 

Florian wasn't his blind spot. More was the irony.

"A nice house in Rivain, hopefully? I want something high up in the hills. A balcony with a view."

_More lies,_ but as Florian pushed a clean needle carefully through the top layer of his skin and euphoria flooded through his blood, believing them seemed a little easier. "Will you be there?"

"Of course I will."


	30. Butterfly Wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite how close we are to a mess of plot, this is mostly porn. Enjoy! [some edits were made since i posted this]

Garrett Hawke had come to Minrathous with nearly nothing: a set of mercenary blacks, a scrap of red fabric so stained the stains passed for patterns, a few choice pieces of practical enchanted jewelry to show that he wasn't above vanity and could at times be bribed by trinkets; and coin, for which there was no real sentimental attachment.

From there to here was a long road, too many stops along the way; at each stop he stripped the trappings that made up the recognizable parts, the masks, of himself, at first skipping stones, shiny baubles picked up along rivers and sea shells, small precious things children hoarded like treasure, like keeping a part of his soul sealed away to be opened at a later time. The first he left behind in a village so small it had no name, not even a dot on a map, buried next to a small sapling and its map carved onto the wall of a shed they've since fled. Then another home, another box with Bethany's old red ribbons she used to weave into her pigtails before she decided pigtails were for little girls; Carver's first wooden sword, snapped and splintered in the middle, buried. Forgotten.

Three mages and the people who loved them, dragged all over Ferelden with the collective keeping them always one step ahead of the templars, and Garrett couldn't afford keepsakes. He learned to laugh at the stupidity of his young sappy self, eventually. People were more important. People remembered your name. His Champion's mantle was broken up into pieces and scattered in the market and received like Andraste's fingerbones; not to compare himself with Andraste since that was only a poetic way to say _overpriced_ , Hawke was no martyr and he was sure Anders' coat would have fetched far more in ten years' time.

Some people spent money on things that stirred their hearts, even when they were poor.

So there were pieces of Garrett all over Thedas with his friends keeping the most important parts: the tone of his voice and the sound of his laughter was impossible to cram into lockboxes, the colour of his eyes when he thought of Anders, Varric used to laugh at that; and out of these fragments emerged an image of a man, not that gaudy, sharply angled statue by the docks leading out to the gallows, not the same chiseled Hawk-like figure with pointy steel toes and claws for gauntlets. Garrett was aware of the transient nature of life, of lives, of the shadows he carried and how little those resembled the people casting those shadows. Yet he wanted the absence of himself to have an effect on the world, all the same.

"Call me Garrett," he said, after having heard _master_ too many times to count. And though the sounds he coaxed out of Anders were sweet, the shuddering of his lips against Garrett's neck, breathing into the hollow, above all, _real_ , not the artifice of perfection he used to give, it wasn't quite enough.

Once he was a tongue-tied boy waiting by the clinic's doors, passing time by - unsuccessfully, no matter how many times Isabela showed him the trick - trying to hide a card in his sleeve.

"Call me love," demanding this no longer required bravery. He curled a finger beneath Anders' chin, forcing the bow-curve of his back to straighten, so he could turn his attention down that pale sternum, where his tongue picked up the fluttering of his heart.

"Garrett," Anders lost his lock-hold over Hawke's shoulders; he clung instead to his master's thick, Fereldan arms, solid as the earth. He echoed, "love."

It sounded like theft, as though he'd just barged into a palace in Orlais and freed the jewels from its innermost sanctum. Hawke was not above petty thievery - he just wasn't usually the one picking the locks. And he'd never felt guilty about it before, either; most of his gear came from a treasure chest or a dead body, and he could not have afforded to think himself into a corner. _Adventuring_ was the life that chose him.

This too, chose him, the feathers and silver bracers and high collars embroidered in gold, the villa and slaves and Anders. And for the first time since he arrived in this wretched city, since he was given a leash with his friend at the end of it, since he heard declarations whispered beneath a Vhenadahl, hoping he could be the one to receive those words instead, he had real, concrete faith in his love.

How Anders dug his fingers into Hawke's forearms was a kind of worship; he would not close his eyes. He was open like as one to receive, lips dry and sticky as Hawke bent to kiss him. He moaned as Hawke's tongue snaked between them, a high sound, an uncontrollable sound, and Hawke could taste his heartbeat and how it raced ahead of Hawke's gentle thrusting.

"Master," he reverted to that again, and Hawke made a face and sped. His grip over Anders' hips tightened, an unconscious anger seeping out of his bones and it seemed nothing could sate it, not the way his desires were sated, "Garrett. Love."

"Tell me how you like it," _I was nothing you wanted,_ he thought, and now he'd be whatever Anders wanted.

Anders licked his lips, swallowed around that trembling nervousness, "more."

"More?"

"Harder," the sun had set by now and in the lamp's light his eyes shone, with such longing.

Hawke slipped his knees to either side of anders and pulled the man half into his lap. His thighs trembled over hawke; with the next roll of his hips Hawke seated himself inside so deep he could see no separation between them. Anders' cock was weeping against his stomach; and with every thrust it bobbed, smearing his skin with a glistening line of clear precum.

Hawke had the urge to lick up that line and smear it on the roof of his mouth, to hear that voice in pleading, in genuine lust, to drink him down whole. But it was not his place, he was startled to realize that it was no longer his place; later, perhaps, he could make it a game, an occasional treat, a reward, but judging by how readily Anders urged Hawke between his legs, his affectionate kisses down Hawke's throat while he spread himself open, Hawke knew well what he craved.

It might take time to change those expectations. With Anders' thighs locked over his elbows, he stroked long over that spot again. Anders cried out beneath him, and his tears glistened too; but he was smiling, as though the pain was something of a benediction, as though it was a blessing.

Hair matting to his forehead and sweat drenching his brow, Hawke reached between their bodies and fisted Anders' cock roughly, drawing his fingers through the slick on his stomach. Anders stared up at him through the butterfly-wings fringe of his eyelashes, and Hawke pushed him down, pushed his knee against his shoulder, digging his thumb into the back of it, and he grinned, rubbed the coarse bristles of his beard carelessly over the flesh of one white thigh and sucked and tasted him there. He had a building soreness in his own knees, and though he knew Anders was his - entirely, irrevocably, signed and sealed in blood - he knew even more that there was another contract to be signed, needed to be renewed every night.

Sweat broke out over Anders' brow, his control slipping. Hawke raised his head and grazed his teeth over the top of Anders' knee once, listened for the sobbing plea and watched for that faint shake of his head meaning _too much, no more,_ and he mouthed the word, _come,_ made his fist twist with all its callouses over the head of that lovely cock and waited for Anders to fall apart over him.

Anders reached for him and there was something desperate about those elegant long fingers formed into rigid claws. Hawke laughed; a strange sound to fill the same space as those cries, those raw sounds coming out through Anders' lips, and instead of slowing like he used to, to gently wring the pleasure out of him, he splayed his hand flat against the back of Anders' leg and bent him double, and instead of aiming to slide across his sweet spot, sweet for him too, bumping over the head of his cock, he made his thrusts short and savage, hitting it straight on.

Sometime ago he was alarmed by this - the crying, the screaming, the twin trails of wetness left behind by his tears - but Anders only asked for more, crying out in dismay when he stopped.

And it was glorious how he shone, how his body turned rigid and bowed back in the little space allowed him, his mouth opened wide; the muscles on his stomach rippled and cum pushed through the gaps between Hawke's fingers. The trick was to never stop - there never was a point where it was enough, over with, and he had to keep Anders flying high between his hands and his cock and his mouth, through the spasms of senstivity, through what had to be pain.

"Garrett," he reminded Anders again.

Anders looked straight at him, through him, and said, "Garrett." As though the name was foreign and strange. Every time.

It was never going to be perfect, again; in the night when he had Anders' head over his heart and they tangled in the middle of their one big bed, his arms no longer wrap tight and possessive with fear. He was a comforting weight on Hawke's shoulder, and Anders no longer got up just to breathe.

It was enough.

Hawke's arms pulled tighter around Anders, he filled his nose with the heated scent of him, skin sticky and smelling of fresh cut grass. The small cut in Hawke's hand hadn't healed yet, and it wouldn't heal with magic poured into it. It was destined to be a pale scar.

"Master," Anders had said, when it was still freshly opened and seeping blood.

He never thought himself _adored_ before; they were content at the best of times, perhaps, and in Minrathous that was no small feat. There was no other way to describe it, however, and as he pulled Anders up off the floor and into his arms, Anders settled against him like he was life, he was home.

This was what their first meeting was supposed to feel like. And it had felt exactly the way it should have. For that evening. For that night. Perhaps even into the morning.

When they woke the day after, his fingers trembled as he traced the way morning sunlight danced on Anders' eyelashes and drew shapes on his cheek, Hawke came to the realization that he was deathly afraid of what he was about to say.

"Anders," he kissed the tip of Anders' nose, stroked his chin, saw him smile and wake - it'd never get old. "'Morning, love."

Anders hummed; he stretched against Hawke and ran his fingers with intimate familiarity from his shoulder to the crook of his elbow, "'morning, Master."

Nervousness filled Hawke's belly; but if he had done something irreparable, now was as good a time as any to know. If the Imperium taught him anything, it was the old threat: there was nowhere left to run, "you don't have to call me master."

The space in between his eyebrows grew smaller as first Anders looked up in confusion, then the most profound kind of fear dawned and widened his eyes, "are you planning on selling me?"

"Never. You know I won't," even the thought of parting with him for the day seemed unbearable, and he did not know if it was as simple as love or this magic that binded Anders to him. "It's just you and me in this room. You don't need to call me anything but Garrett, that's all."

Anders lit up when that reassurance came, and Hawke's answering smile quickly died as his mouth tried to form the name, "Garrett." It sounded unpracticed, Tevene-accented and snapped at the end.

It bit at him like flames and it burned his arm where Anders was touching him, the pain near tangible. Hawke hurried to put it out, found the words and threw it like sand over a spreading fire, "that will do."

All through the first day after, Garrett Hawke stared past where he was looking and recited his lessons like the tranquil. His tranquil assistant kept correcting him. He trailed off in the middle of sentences, touched his hand to his forehead as if he had a headache, and his students were beyond his classes, anyhow; either they had the gift for the force inherent in objects or they did not. It was the kind of magic that chose the mage.

Knowing that Anders was devoted wholly to him gave him the courage to ask more questions where his old self, the boy, would have left it alone. Anders wasn't running away, either by cutting his chains or by death. And if his devotion was as blind as Hawke had seen long before he came into the possession of his own love slave, then whatever ate at his heart's walls shouldn't matter.

"Who am I?"  He couldn't leave it alone with that sort of guarantee.

Anders greeted him as warmly as he had the night before, and Hawke was thankful that Mira remembered his instructions and at least clothed him. But through the thin normality that cloaked them, Hawke felt his heart beat in its cage and it was most definitely panic.

"Garrett," and as the parroted answer did not seem to please right away, Anders added, "Magister Hawke."

The uneasy feeling gathered in the pit of his stomach and continued to sink. From the ashes of the hollow this fire left behind he squeezed out a smile; there was always a smile, even over dead bodies, and so there was a smile over dead memories too. He sat, heavily, his weight carrying him down into the soft cushion, and the wooden backs and bottoms of distinctly Tevinter chairs pushed rows into his skin. Anders followed him on his hands and knees, and settled like a mabari with his head in Hawke's lap.

He wanted to ask _who are you, then?_ Or the simpler, _what do you know of me?_ But they were too direct, and he was getting dizzy. Good thing too, that he was sitting down. Garrett Hawke called for dinner, clapped his hands and asked for wine and perhaps some bread, some simple fare that reminded him of home if there ever was one, something thrown into a pot and cooked until grayish, something with potatoes and beans.

Anders looked expectantly into a bowl placed on the floor for him; Hawke poured wine from his own cup into the bowl, and the ruby red wine, a gift from the Archon no less, Fereldan imports _for our Fereldan guest_ , looked dark and black as ichor in the metal dish.

It was sickening to look at, and the wine was sour in his mouth. Hawke had developed a taste for Tevinter's sweet wine, it seemed, but Anders lapped it up with his tongue and did not seem to mind. _Nothing was worse than feeding him my blood,_ Hawke poured down the rest of the wine. Perhaps the taste of home could ring a few bells.

He settled on a question, after dinner.

"Tell me about Kirkwall."

"It's a very long story," Anders looked up only when commanded, a finger beneath his chin to guide the way. He looked from side to side shiftily, "and it's not all that interesting."

"That's not for you to judge."

Hawke led him by the chin, by the collar, to their bed, and he piled the pillows high and uged Anders to sit with his back against them. He laid down himself and wrapped his arms around Anders' waist and rested his head against his hip, his beard, his sideburns snagging on the silk.

"Where should I start?"

"'I have made this a place of healing and salvation,'" Hawke quoted. "That's always a good spot."

"Have I told you this story before?"

"You could say that," Hawke drawled and pulled a sheet over them.

The sun had barely set, and it took with it the day's heat and sea breeze took its place. All he could smell was _city_ anyway, flowers of their neatly planted gardens and the alien scent of fig trees in off-season. In the scent of Minrathous Anders began to tell his tale of Kirkwall, from the moment he turned in his clinic warned by Justice and met - Varric Tethras.

Anders recalled their first battle together, Karl, the whole mess of templar bodies in the chantry, and Anders recalled saving the blood mages from the caves off the coast, later. Conveniently, Anders had written Hawke out of all his stories.

This was not entirely true. There was a Hawke in his story, and his name was Carver.

Anders remembered everyone.

"And who was the leader of that bunch of misfits?" Hawke asked, kept the hope out of his voice best he could, leaving only an air of curiosity. "Who walked at the head of your little scouting party?"

Anders had to think for a second. But only a second, "Aveline. Well, sometimes. Varric did the talking."

The story followed them into the night. It became apparent, as each decision came to pass in this story, that Garrett had written himself out of it. Each time he handed off a decision - always, if there was any way he could help it - Anders scratched the hand-off away as though all of Hawkes' funny remarks and witty comebacks were not important enough to mark down in his memory.

His limbs were heavy, and he was glad he was already in bed, for an exhaustion fell over him as one having walked long and far, and once he stopped he was leaden all over and even his eyelids wanted to close forever.

This wasn't what he wanted. Though what was it he wanted? One could not buy love.

He'd tried for years, for that too, throwing his coin - he had plenty to spare, still did - on long-limbed whores with red gold hair, hair never quite the right texture, chins too shaven, kisses too practiced. Anders' breathing was steady beneath his arm. He was never going to run from his master - he might have run from Hawke. Not the week before, certainly, but some day. Hawke was sure of it. He woke every night in fear of it. And now there was no fear, just a resigned emptiness, and he wondered if this was what death felt like.

Fingers worked through his hair and loosened his collar and Hawke rolled onto his back as Anders undressed him and curled up against him. He slept, restlessly, and each time he woke Anders was there to calm him.

In the morning he pretended nothing was wrong, but he couldn't go home after his usual day of work. He ended up in the perfumed, powdered parlour of a brothel instead, conveniently close, and recommended by a senior enchanter, no less. They had two that were Anders by origin and long-limbed and pretty like his Anders, and younger; some might have found it important but Hawke only found them _different_ and they did not unburden him, only distracted him for a time. For a resting moment afterwards, with one man on either side of him, one scarcely old enough to be called that, skin like alabaster that had rarely seen the sun, he wondered why he bothered chasing down the real thing. Real love was a troublesome chore, a liability on his senses, and he'd lost his mind, that was it, lost his mind over someone complicated, someone who had no room for love in his life.

But while they were apart someone else took Anders and carved a spot for love in his life, and Hawke barged in with his _name_ and his new title; he thought there was always room for him, and even he knew he was a self-centered man, a selfish man for thinking so.

By the time he stumbled home, the wine had gone to his head and made his feet dumb. The perfume had been washed off of him, as was all evidence of where he'd been, but the moment he opened his bedroom door and saw Anders dozing off in a chair, obviously waiting up, a plate of cold cuts and fruit and hard, southern cheeses on a side table, his cheeks coloured and his ears began to burn.

It was a warm reception for him regardless, kisses the moment he motioned for them with nothing more than half-opened lips, while Anders' hands untied the myriad knots in his robe. "Welcome home, master," said his slave with his faint scars and the laugh lines, the lopsided smile Hawke could never quite forget all the years they were only friends.

He was convinced he would always chase this smile - from the moment he saw it until the day he died. And now it was in front of him, in his bed with him, and Hawke kept spinning like a top.

"I've been an idiot," he said, and Anders shook his head _shhh_ by his ear, and he vaguely heard, _you're drunk,_ and yes he was drunk but his thinking was as clear as the faint freckles over Anders' shoulder. Age and time in the sun, "I'm an idiot."

Anders took him to bed and Hawke pressed their foreheads together, taking one of Anders' hands in both of his, couldn't stop kissing his knuckles, his fingers, the spots where Tevinter never quite filed away their roughness. The shared memories were in his skin, the years he'd watch Anders whirl that staff, carving these white callouses at the base of his fingers where blood never reached. He kissed them too, inspecting them blearily and comparing them to his memory of them, seeing how they had faded again and feeling strangely unsettled that of course they had eroded. Anders rubbed at his shoulders, and the marks on his neck and his sides and everywhere was obvious; Hawke waited for a reprimand, waited for jealousy and nothing came. Just quiet acceptance. And the Hawke-shaped hole in Anders' memory threatened to devour him whole.

"You're not angry?" He asked, and Anders had watery, bright eyes, in the typical vision of one very intoxicated. Anders was beautiful - always was, but even more so now.

"If I don't please you well enough that you need to seek pleasure elsewhere, then I am at fault." Anders said, and these words were measured and slow, given like one answering a test, "and even if that isn't the reason, it isn't my place to be angry."

"Why not? I belong to you just as much as you belong to me," Hawke answered, obstinately, shaking his head and rubbing his beard across Anders' hand. "I love you."

"I love you," there was no anger, and barely enough sadness to blanket them both.

"You used to get so angry," Hawke warned himself not to bring up the past, not to muddle Anders any more than he was already muddled. But he was drunk. "You called me all sorts of names and glared ..."

"That I did," Anders smiled close to him, his features blurring, and Hawke felt hope crash over him like a wave. And yet this smile wasn't for him, and his embrace neither, because one could not steal love.

One could not even borrow love.

"Be mad at me again," he mumbled, his jaws felt heavy and his teeth grinded as he spoke. "I love you."

"You're very sweet when you drink too much," Anders laughed softly across from him.

"Get mad anyway."

"I don't have it in me," Anders said, then he added, "I can only hope to be the one to please you."

And if he wasn't so drunk and tired, the places on him, in him, touched earlier still tingling and reminded him of his guilt, Hawke might have cried. Anders smoothed down the gooseflesh on his arms and that small, guilty part of Hawke whispered of how he did not deserve this love, and he knew full well he was not deserving of it, but he was not deserving of many other things he came into the possession of over the years, and he never turned it down.

He was undeserved. He would go on being undeserving.

When he was sober it was harder to pretend everything was fine, he was living with the love of his life, the love of his life was in no danger of leaving him or harming himself, what could be better. There was always more work; he considered going to war in Seheron with the rest of the Tevinters, but he did not want to endanger Anders by taking him to a war zone. He could not leave Anders behind.

Varric's letters piled up on his desk and the last few sat there unopened. He became afraid of them, a creeping feeling up the back of his neck made him back away whenever he saw them. Varric was his friend. Varric never judged him - sometimes he was exasperated with Hawke but he knew what Hawke was. Still, Hawke felt a special kind of shame, as if this was worse than all the glib words that let slavers go in Kirkwall, all the shady business deals.

And he knew betraying a friend this way was worse than all of Varric's shady deals, combined.

He made excuses. Garrett was good at those. Late dinners. Coming home half out of his mind, and barely any time spent with Anders except for a perfunctory undressing. He still slept with Anders within his reach, and his love seemed to grow sadder by the day. His smile was still warm and he never got up in the night and his warmth was a soothing presence in their bed, but the words haunting Hawke circled and circled in his head. _I can only hope to be the one pleasing you._

The brothel was not out of his way; on the contrary, it was along a direct path he took to the Circle. He took a longer walk around it, after the third visit. It was a temporary relief, lasting only as long as he was within its brightly lit rooms and scented baths. Hawke let the boys suck on his neck and his chest where it left the deepest purple bruises, waited for this bond between Anders and himself to break, but there was never resentment, just a sigh and a smile and Hawke felt terrible for both of them. He'd run into a problem he couldn't throw magic at, and it was the only way he knew to fix things. There were of course, ways; but the few discreet inquiries he made all came back with the same answer, and selling Anders now was both an insult to a high-ranking magister and inconceivable, given his attachment.

Their bed grew colder, and some nights they did not touch, sleeping on opposite ends of their bed, still Anders remained by his side all night. It was comforting to know he was there; Hawke kept him safe still, in this strange city where the world was upside down at least there were no templars. Nothing for Anders to fear.

And if Anders was unhappy, or cried in he night, he did it out of Hawke's sight. Mira glared at him from the shadows. For a woman with one eye, she could burn a hole in your back with her glare. Sometimes he saw her in his peripheral vision as he stumbled home, leaning on the first pillar surrounding the atrium to steady himself, and moonlight would glint off her hair and her mask, making her look a terror.

He suspected that it was her, and not Anders, that wanted to turn their relationship around; for Mira, Anders' happiness was everything. Perhaps she loved him most. Perhaps she had instructions. Her voiceless faces were as enigmatic as ever and she responded to all his questions with a shake of her head.

But one night when he had no excuses and no dinner to attend, and the sun hadn't yet set when he came home, he found Anders kneeling just inside the bedroom. his forearms were stacked against each other and bound behind him, rope wound down his chest and across his nipples, running down between his legs. He must have been left there for a while; precum had dripped over his cock, bobbing on its own every few seonds or so and droplets of clear liquid glinted beneath him from the stone floor. He was placed sideways to the door and bound there, presumably so he would not notice immediately when Hawke walked in.

Anders panted softly, biting on a gag that had rough rope on the sides, and they trailed taut over his neck, his shoulders, behind him, disappearing between the cleft of his arse. His eyes were closed tight; the ropes wrapped tightly around him but they did not cut into him, they clung like well-fitted clothing, and Hawke's mouth went dry at the sight of him. He closed the door, leaned against it, his cock already stirring beneath his robes.

Hawke pulled off the restrictive outer belts and let it fall to the floor, the swish of fabric catching Anders' attention where the soft closing of their door did not. With Anders' eyes on him he palmed himself over his robes and he heard Anders moan over the gag in his mouth.

"I don't like this," at the whine of dismay Hawke corrected himself, "the gag. I don't like the gag. I want to see your face."

And with one hand on each side he worked it slowly out of Anders' mouth. It did something to him, and as Hawke worked the contraption over his head Anders nearly collapsed from the stimulation. Hawke reached behind him and followed the rope, until he found the round knob it attached to, at the end of a plug lodged deep in his arse. He remembered their first night here, and gave it a little pull. Anders whined softly over his shoulder; Hawke kissed him, for the first time in a week, drinking in that moan like nectar.

"I missed you," his voice cracked over it, and even though he knew there was no way to make this right, he could at least love Anders, the way he was, let them find each other again somehow. Anders was in love with him once. He could love Hawke on his own again.

"I missed you too," Anders said, biting off a moan. His skin was burning hot to the touch.

Hawke couldn't tell an echo from truth, but he'd wanted that longing for himself. He stole his gold from the deep roads from a thaig of ghosts, he stole a mansion from slavers - slavers! - who owned it by rights, he stole countless treasures from chests and mansions and the pockets of the dead. He was wise enough to know love was the one thing that could not be stolen, but he was rash enough too, to think maybe, given enough time, he could tame Anders the way one could retrain a tamed pet.

"Is this good?" He grabbed a hold of the ropes in a web over Anders' stomach, and licked the hard pebbles of his nipples peeking out between the lines.

"Yes, master," Anders said after a whimper like a reflex. Hawke's hand grabbed tighter, in anger, and as it tightened over the rest of him Anders made such noises. Obscene, bedroom sounds like none of what he'd heard so far, and it was intoxicating. Addicting.

"Garrett," he prompted. "'Yes, Garrett.'"

"Yes, Garrett," Anders repeated. "That feels wonderful."

Like a boy learning a new instrument he pulled on the strings; and from each wince and moan he learned the notes, and once pulling the entire harness upwards earned him an entirely pliable, moaning Anders collapsing into his lap. He fed on the sounds Anders made like a lyrium high; it made his head fizzy, made his laughter sharp and low.

He did it again, just to hear it, over and over, Anders' head on his shoulder and sweet moans in his ear. He found the rope that connected to the butt plug and wrapped it around his wrist, pulled on it in the same beat, and smiled as Anders shuddered in his arms. Hawke bit his skin and licked him where he was exposed, hot to the touch like fever.

"Were you angry when I went to the brothel? Tell me you're angry."

Anders glanced up once, hesitated, and Hawke pulled the plug slowly upwards, "yes. Oh. Garrett," his cock twitched, neglected and glistening. "I wanted you with me."

"Then tell me," he pulled on the ropes again, alternating them to watch Anders dance in his bonds. "I give you permission to be jealous. To be possessive. Tell me."

"I want you," Anders snapped forward to kiss him, the tight line of his shoulders covered in bite marks already, where the skin was not covered by ropes. "To want me only," his eyes glazed over, in heat. "I want you to fuck me."

Hawke lowered him to the floor. Where he knelt no rug covered; the stone tiles hard beneath him, with his chest on the floor and his head cushioned only by his hair, he was a bound offering, and Hawke tucked his thumbs into that heated cleft of his arse, ran them around the plug, cupped the tightened sack in his hand and stroked all the way down only once. Anders gritted his teeth and breathed fast, shallow breaths, whimpering softly as Hawke twisted the short plug out of his well-oiled hole and bent over him, hands digging into the ropes holding Anders' arms behind his back, and he pushed in all the way with one long thrust.

He was spread so wide and yet he seemed so impossibly tight, and as soon as Hawke was inside it was as warm as his skin, burning up and vice-like, and Hawke hissed at the grip of Anders' arse over his cock. This wasn't going to last long, not after this much time apart. He twined one hand into the ropes at Anders' back and mindlessly matched a rhythm to his thrusts; reached a hand beneath them and roughly, loosely wrapped his fingers over his cock. It slipped snugly in his hand and as he watched Anders' expression shift to fear in the obvious loss of his tight control, he commanded, "let go."

Anders let out a long wail as he came, and he seemed capable of going on forever, as Hawke pumped his release inside him, softening, and still moving, and Anders twitched between his hands as though electrified. He shook beneath Hawke for each inch of withdrawing from him.

Even after Hawke had loosened the ties over his forearms and freed them, gathered Anders up into his arms and they laid sprawled on the floor, he still seemed to gasp at every little touch. _Mine,_ Hawke stared at the vulnerable love in Anders' gaze and the word came without a thought. _He belongs to me._

And before he had a chance to look away, Anders began to smile, and effervescent laughter came out of him sweet as Tevinter wine. They didn't bother moving to the bedroom until much later that night. Hawke watched him heal the bruises on both of them the next morning, kissing each dark spot before it disappeared with a glow of green light.

He told Anders he loved him every morning; he loved Anders well into the night. Mira left them toys, and sometimes food for the eveing - Hawke swore he saw her smiling and watching in the hallways each day he came home early. She just wanted them to be happy.

Her mask was not fearsome at all.

And though some days he wondered if he should have left it all behind before digging himself in so deep he could barely see which side of the horizon from which the sun rose, he would look across the bed at Anders, and wake him, and receive an answering blissful smile in return. And if sometimes Anders was vacant and stared at him strangely, seemed confused even when they were in bed together, Garrett Hawke pretended he did not see.

So when the day this all seemed set to change, Hawke found himself unprepared. He balled up the missive from the Archon and considered making a run for it, but knew he was watched at every turn, and probably more so now. If there was a constant in his life, it was change, the tireless upheaval of his life that he was getting quite tired of.

Sebastian Vael was coming to Minrathous, for the apprehension of Anders, the revolutionary, the fiery mage who dared to talk back to Meredith. And so the Archon wanted to talk. Though if he thought Hawke was open to negotiate his love away for a position higher in he senate, the Imperium had overestimated his regard of them.

By his feet, Anders fidgeted, sensing Hawke's discomfort. He turned silently and waited for permission to speak; the ropes were dark forest green today, and in the atrium he was dressed to match, his posture perfect with his hands between his knees and head held high.

 _Revolutionary,_ Hawke mused, and said, "it's nothing important, love."


End file.
